Heat Pump Payback in Everett, MA
Should Everett switch to a heat pump?
In Everett, the extra upfront cost technically comes back, just not before the equipment wears out. Against a like-for-like gas furnace and AC swap, going electric costs $5,500 more up front here. Everett's residents would see roughly $157 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 34.9 years. Everett's own numbers say this pencils out only in theory, not in practice.
Checking a different city
Everett is one of 3206 cities covered here, each run through the same model. Search another below.
Why Everett's climate drives this number
Degree days tell the story here: Everett racks up 5029 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers add a moderate cooling load, with 807 cooling degree days on the cooling side. 14°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here, the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day, with a low of 10°F in the 2024 station record. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 3.04 on the cold-climate unit fit for this climate. Below the 25°F line where a standard machine starts leaning on resistance backup, Everett sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. These numbers come from Gen E L Logan International A, the closest NOAA station, 3.9 miles out.
The yearly running costs in Everett
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 4,189 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $1,470 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 52 Mcf a year at $25.06 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $1,628 a year including the old AC (electricity here runs 30.15¢/kWh). Buying outright rather than at replacement time stretches payback to longer than the 15-year equipment life. Over 15 years, compared with a like-for-like replacement, the heat pump leaves you $3,138 behind.
The break-even point in Everett
This result holds unless electricity climbs above 34.3¢/kWh (it is 30.15¢ now) or gas drops below $22.05 per Mcf (now $25.06); past either point, gas becomes the cheaper fuel in Everett. When quotes arrive, compare the heat pump price with a like-for-like furnace and AC replacement: at $157 a year saved, a difference under $1,099 pays back within 7 years here, and under $1,570 within 10.
Electric resistance heat in Everett, compared
Gas isn't universal in Everett, many houses run on electric heat already. Against electric-resistance heat, baseboard or an electric furnace, both 100% efficient but still just resistance, the case for switching gets stronger here. Switching saves about $2,684 a year here, a heat pump moving heat rather than generating it needs far less electricity than resistance coils, so the extra $10,000 spent up front comes back in about 3.7 years.
How Everett compares nationally
Among 3206 cities, Everett's winter puts it at rank 663 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 785 for population, 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the coldest third of the dataset, where climate does most of the work behind this figure.
Next step if you live in Everett
About 51,825 people live in Everett, Massachusetts, and every number on this page is what a contractor would actually work from when quoting a system here, the point isn't to replace that quote, it's to tell you whether to bother asking for one. Here, there's no cost penalty to waiting until your current furnace or AC actually needs replacing.
Line up a few local HVAC quotes before you decide.
Reading further on this page's numbers
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Everett's 3.04 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. At a 14°F design temperature, Everett sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.