Will a heat pump pay off in Ferguson, MO?
In Ferguson, the math is close enough that it comes down to how long you plan to stay. $3,500 is what Ferguson 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. Lower bills claw that back: about $242 saved annually, for a payback of roughly 14.5 years. Whether that's worth it in Ferguson depends on how many years you expect to own the place.
Why Ferguson's climate drives this number
Degree days tell the story here: Ferguson racks up 3396 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, with 2013 cooling degree days on the cooling side. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 1.9°F here (record low -7.1°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.75 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. A cold-climate unit is the right call in Ferguson — below 25°F design temperature, a standard heat pump leans hard on electric-resistance backup, which erases most of the savings. Source: NOAA station LAMBERT-ST LOUIS INTERNATIONA, 4.2 miles from Ferguson — the closest one on record.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 3,127 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $621 a year on electricity. That compares with roughly 35 Mcf a year of gas at Ferguson's 14.94 per-Mcf rate — about $863 a year — against a local electricity rate of 12.83¢/kWh. Buy it outright, not incrementally, and payback stretches to 55.8 years; over 15 years the net position sits $126 ahead.
The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with
Plenty of homes in Ferguson heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Against electric-resistance heat — baseboard or an electric furnace, both 100% efficient but still just resistance — the case for switching gets stronger here. About $817 a year comes back this way, enough that the 9.8-year payback clears the $8,000 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.
How Ferguson compares nationally
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Ferguson comes in at 1800 for heating severity — 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset — and 2092 by population, where 1 is largest. That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
Next step for 18,043 people in Ferguson
About 18,043 people live in Ferguson, Missouri, 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.
Ask a local HVAC contractor for a quote before committing either way.
Where Ferguson's figure comes from
Every constant behind this page — the 2.75 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs — is documented in the methodology guide. At a 1.9°F design temperature, Ferguson sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.