Is a heat pump worth it in Farmington Hills?

In Farmington Hills, a heat pump would cost more to run each year than what you have now. $3,500 is what Farmington Hills would pay extra to go electric rather than replace the furnace and AC with the same again, once the $2,000 federal credit is applied. Unfortunately the electric bill outweighs the gas bill it replaces by about $265 a year here, so the extra spend stays unrecovered. That's Farmington Hills's own climate and rates talking, not a hedge or a caveat.

Farmington Hills's weather, in the numbers that matter

4971 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Farmington Hills has a real but manageable winter; the cooling side runs to 954 cooling degree days, where summers add a moderate cooling load. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 5.9°F here (record low -2.4°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.84 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. Below the 25°F line where a standard machine starts leaning on resistance backup, Farmington Hills sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, OAKLAND/TROY AIRPORT, 10.8 miles from Farmington Hills.

What it actually costs to run, year to year

Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 4,432 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $1,087 a year. Farmington Hills's gas rate of 10.92 per Mcf, applied to the 52 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts its running cost near $822 a year, against 20.72¢ per kWh for electricity. Buy it outright, not incrementally, and payback stretches to beyond the 15-year equipment life; over 15 years the net position sits $7,480 behind.

If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas

Gas isn't universal in Farmington Hills — many houses run on electric heat already. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. The saving here runs about $1,777 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 4.5 years.

Where Farmington Hills ranks in this dataset

Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Farmington Hills comes in at 750 for heating severity — 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset — and 432 by population, where 1 is largest. That's the coldest third of the dataset, where climate does most of the work behind this figure.

What to do with this number in Farmington Hills

Farmington Hills, Michigan is home to about 84,173 people, and the figures above are the same ones a local HVAC contractor uses to size and quote a system — this site doesn't guess where a real quote would land, it just tells you whether it's worth asking for one. In Farmington Hills, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.

Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.

Where Farmington Hills's figure comes from

The methodology guide walks through exactly how Farmington Hills's 2.84 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. At a 5.9°F design temperature, Farmington Hills sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.