Heat pump vs. gas furnace in Flowood, MS

In Flowood, the math is close enough that it comes down to how long you plan to stay. $3,500 is what Flowood 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. Flowood's residents would see roughly $272 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 12.9 years. It's a genuine toss-up here — Flowood's numbers don't point clearly either way.

How cold Flowood actually gets

1686 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Flowood has a mild winter by US standards; the cooling side runs to 2732 cooling degree days, where summers are severe enough that cooling can dominate the annual bill. 20.1°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here — the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day — with a record low of 10.9°F on file. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 3.18 on the cold-climate unit fit for this climate. A cold-climate unit is the right call in Flowood — below 25°F design temperature, a standard heat pump leans hard on electric-resistance backup, which erases most of the savings. These numbers come from JACKSON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, the closest NOAA station, 1.1 miles out.

Flowood's running-cost comparison, in dollars

Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 1,343 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $568 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 18 Mcf a year at 16.64 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $840 a year (electricity here runs 15.47¢/kWh). Buy it outright, not incrementally, and payback stretches to 49.7 years; over 15 years the net position sits $578 ahead.

Electric resistance heat in Flowood, compared

Plenty of homes in Flowood heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. The saving here runs about $640 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 12.5 years.

Where Flowood ranks in this dataset

Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Flowood comes in at 2592 for heating severity — 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset — and 3017 by population, where 1 is largest. That's the mildest third of cities covered, where utility rates carry more of the answer than climate does.

What to do with this number in Flowood

Flowood, Mississippi is home to about 10,853 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 Flowood, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.

Line up a few local HVAC quotes before you decide.

More on how this number was built

Every constant behind this page — the 3.18 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs — is documented in the methodology guide. Flowood's 20.1°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.