Should Farragut switch to a heat pump?

Farragut technically pencils out, but only past the point the equipment would need replacing anyway. Swap a failed furnace and AC for a heat pump rather than buying like-for-like, and the extra cost here runs $3,500 after a $2,000 federal tax credit. Farragut's residents would see roughly $109 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 32.1 years. That's a technicality, not a recommendation, for anyone actually living in Farragut.

Farragut's weather, in the numbers that matter

3090 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Farragut has a real but manageable winter; the cooling side runs to 1623 cooling degree days, where summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating. The 99% winter design temperature here — the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average — is 9°F, against a record low of -2°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 2.92 for the recommended cold-climate unit. A cold-climate unit is the right call in Farragut — below 25°F design temperature, a standard heat pump leans hard on electric-resistance backup, which erases most of the savings. Source: NOAA station OAK RIDGE, 10.6 miles from Farragut — the closest one on record.

Farragut's running-cost comparison, in dollars

A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 2,680 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $564 a year on electricity. Farragut's gas rate of 11.84 per Mcf, applied to the 32 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts its running cost near $673 a year, against 13.87¢ per kWh for electricity. Looked at as a full purchase rather than an incremental one, payback here is roughly 123.6 years, leaving the 15-year total $1,862 behind.

Electric resistance heat in Farragut, compared

Not every home in Farragut has gas service. Against electric-resistance heat — baseboard or an electric furnace, both 100% efficient but still just resistance — the case for switching gets stronger here. The saving here runs about $813 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 9.8 years.

Where Farragut ranks in this dataset

Farragut lands at position 1886 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 1588 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.

Deciding what's next in Farragut, TN

Farragut, Tennessee is home to about 25,242 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 Farragut, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.

Ask a local HVAC contractor for a quote before committing either way.

Where Farragut's figure comes from

The methodology guide walks through exactly how Farragut's 2.92 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Farragut's 9°F design temperature is below the 25°F line, which is why a cold-climate unit is the right call here — see what that changes in the cold-climate unit guide.