Is a heat pump worth it in Farmington?

In Farmington, 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 $3,500 more up front here (already netting out a $2,000 tax credit). Lower bills claw that back: about $53 saved annually, for a payback of roughly 66.1 years. That's a technicality, not a recommendation, for anyone actually living in Farmington.

Farmington's weather, in the numbers that matter

Degree days tell the story here: Farmington racks up 5273 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, with 1329 cooling degree days on the cooling side. The 99% winter design temperature here — the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average — is 12.4°F, against a record low of 9°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 3 for the recommended cold-climate unit. Farmington needs the cold-climate class of unit: past a 25°F design temperature a standard heat pump falls back on resistance backup often enough to eat the savings. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, HILL AFB AIRPORT, 9.7 miles from Farmington.

Farmington's running-cost comparison, in dollars

Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 4,451 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $733 a year. That compares with roughly 55 Mcf a year of gas at Farmington's 10.19 per-Mcf rate — about $786 a year — against a local electricity rate of 13.12¢/kWh. Buy it outright, not incrementally, and payback stretches to 254.8 years; over 15 years the net position sits $2,705 behind.

If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas

Gas isn't universal in Farmington — 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 $1,245 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 6.4 years.

How Farmington compares nationally

Among 3206 cities, Farmington's winter puts it at rank 530 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 1531 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.

What to do with this number in Farmington

Farmington, Utah is home to about 26,163 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, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.

Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.

Where Farmington's figure comes from

Nothing above is a black box: the methodology guide shows the full arithmetic behind Farmington's 3 seasonal COP and payback figure. At a 12.4°F design temperature, Farmington sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.