Heat Pump Payback in Franklin, OH
Will a heat pump pay off in Franklin, OH?
Franklin technically pencils out, but only past the point the equipment would need replacing anyway. $5,500 is what Franklin would pay extra to go electric rather than replace the furnace and AC with the same again. Franklin's residents would see roughly $8 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 667.5 years. That's a technicality, not a recommendation, for anyone actually living in Franklin.
Compare against another city
This runs the same numbers for 3206 US cities, not just Franklin. Look one up here.
Franklin's weather, in the numbers that matter
4083 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Franklin has a real but manageable winter; the cooling side runs to 1300 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 3°F, and the coldest daily reading in the 2024 station record was 3°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 2.77 for the recommended cold-climate unit. 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, Dayton-Wright Brothers Apt, 4.6 miles from Franklin.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 3,732 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $891 a year. Franklin's gas rate of $13.85 per Mcf, applied to the 43 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts the current furnace-and-AC running cost near $899 a year, against 18.40¢ per kWh for electricity. If the current system still worked and you replaced it anyway, the full cost would take longer than the 15-year equipment life to earn back; against buying a new furnace and AC regardless, the 15-year total lands $5,376 behind.
What would change Franklin's answer
Gas would only overtake the heat pump in Franklin if electricity rose past 18.7¢/kWh from 18.40¢, or gas fell under $13.66 per Mcf from $13.85. A useful quote test for Franklin: the heat pump is worth it within a decade if it costs less than $80 more than replacing the furnace and AC, and within 7 years if the gap is under $56.
Electric resistance heat in Franklin, compared
Not every home in Franklin has gas service. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Franklin's answer improves. The saving here runs about $1,322 a year, which recovers the extra $10,000 spent going electric in roughly 7.6 years.
How Franklin compares nationally
Franklin lands at position 1468 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 2852 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, Ohio is home to about 11,758 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.
Ask a local HVAC contractor for a quote before committing either way.
Where Franklin's figure comes from
Nothing above is a black box: the methodology guide shows the full arithmetic behind Franklin's 2.77 seasonal COP and payback figure. Franklin's 3°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.