Heat pump vs. gas furnace in Franklin, IN

Here in Franklin, the honest answer is that a heat pump raises your annual running cost. 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. Running costs here land $48 a year HIGHER than the furnace it replaces, so that premium is never recovered. That's Franklin's own climate and rates talking, not a hedge or a caveat.

Franklin's weather, in the numbers that matter

3914 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Franklin has a real but manageable winter; the cooling side runs to 1441 cooling degree days, where summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 0°F here (record low -4°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.7 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. Below the 25°F line where a standard machine starts leaning on resistance backup, Franklin sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, SHELBYVILLE MINUCIPAL ARPT, 14.4 miles from Franklin.

Franklin's running-cost comparison, in dollars

Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 3,671 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $834 a year. That compares with roughly 41 Mcf a year of gas at Franklin's 11.49 per-Mcf rate — about $786 a year — against a local electricity rate of 17.03¢/kWh. Priced as a standalone purchase rather than against a like-for-like replacement, equipment payback runs past the 15-year equipment life, for a 15-year net position $4,219 behind.

If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas

Not every home in Franklin has gas service. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Franklin's answer improves. About $1,171 a year comes back this way, enough that the 6.8-year payback clears the $8,000 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.

Franklin against the rest of the country

Franklin lands at position 1579 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 1533 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.

What to do with this number in Franklin

Franklin, Indiana is home to about 26,158 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 Franklin, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.

Line up a few local HVAC quotes before you decide.

Where Franklin's figure comes from

The methodology guide walks through exactly how Franklin's 2.7 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Franklin's 0°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.