Heat Pump Payback in Fort Worth, TX
Will a heat pump pay off in Fort Worth, TX?
Fort Worth technically pencils out, but only past the point the equipment would need replacing anyway. Against a like-for-like gas furnace and AC swap, going electric costs $5,500 more up front here. Fort Worth's residents would see roughly $353 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 15.6 years. That's a technicality, not a recommendation, for anyone actually living in Fort Worth.
Compare against another city
Fort Worth is one of 3206 cities covered here, each run through the same model. Search another below.
How cold Fort Worth actually gets
1912 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Fort Worth has a mild winter by US standards; the cooling side runs to 3091 cooling degree days, where summers are severe enough that cooling can dominate the annual bill. 15.1°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here, the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day, with a low of 8.1°F in the 2024 station record. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 3.06 on the cold-climate unit fit for this climate. Mild on average, but the occasional cold snap is what sizes the equipment: at a 15.1°F design temperature Fort Worth falls just under the 25°F line where a standard heat pump starts leaning on resistance backup, so the model prices a cold-climate unit to be safe. These numbers come from Ft Worth Meacham International Airport, the closest NOAA station, 2.7 miles out.
The yearly running costs in Fort Worth
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 1,582 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $681 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 20 Mcf a year at $19.42 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $1,034 a year including the old AC (electricity here runs 16.15¢/kWh). Buying outright rather than at replacement time stretches payback to longer than the 15-year equipment life. Over 15 years, compared with a like-for-like replacement, the heat pump leaves you $212 behind.
The break-even point in Fort Worth
Gas would only overtake the heat pump in Fort Worth if electricity rose past 182.7¢/kWh from 16.15¢, or gas fell under $1.72 per Mcf from $19.42. A useful quote test for Fort Worth: the heat pump is worth it within a decade if it costs less than $3,530 more than replacing the furnace and AC, and within 7 years if the gap is under $2,471.
The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with
Gas isn't universal in Fort Worth, 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 $748 a year, which recovers the extra $10,000 spent going electric in roughly 13.4 years.
How Fort Worth compares nationally
Among 3206 cities, Fort Worth's winter puts it at rank 2465 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 11 for population, 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the mildest third of cities covered, where utility rates carry more of the answer than climate does.
Next step if you live in Fort Worth
Fort Worth, Texas is home to about 1,008,106 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 Fort Worth, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Ask a local HVAC contractor for a quote before committing either way.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Fort Worth's 3.06 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Fort Worth's 15.1°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.