Friendswood, TX: the heat pump payback math
Friendswood clears a genuine payback here, inside a reasonable stretch of years. Against a like-for-like gas furnace and AC swap, going electric costs $1,000 more up front here (already netting out a $2,000 tax credit). Friendswood's residents would see roughly $318 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 3.1 years. The window here is reasonable, and it's specific to what Friendswood actually pays for power and gas.
Friendswood's weather, in the numbers that matter
Friendswood barely has a winter to speak of — 795 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base — and summers are severe enough that cooling can dominate the annual bill, at 3633 cooling degree days. The 99% winter design temperature here — the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average — is 32°F, against a record low of 19.9°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 3.15 for the recommended standard unit. Friendswood's winters don't get cold enough to need the cold-climate premium — a standard unit holds up fine. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, CLOVER FIELD AIRPORT, 2.6 miles from Friendswood.
The month-to-month numbers for Friendswood
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 639 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $603 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 8 Mcf a year at 19.42 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $921 a year (electricity here runs 16.15¢/kWh). Looked at as a full purchase rather than an incremental one, payback here is roughly 34.6 years, leaving the 15-year total $3,766 ahead.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Not every home in Friendswood has gas service. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. Switching saves about $482 a year here — a heat pump moving heat rather than generating it needs far less electricity than resistance coils — so the extra $5,500 spent up front comes back in about 11.4 years.
Where Friendswood ranks in this dataset
Friendswood lands at position 2973 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 992 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). 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 Friendswood
Friendswood, Texas is home to about 41,291 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. Given the math above, Friendswood is a place worth lining up quotes ahead of a breakdown, not waiting for one.
Ask a local HVAC contractor for a quote before committing either way.
More on how this number was built
Every constant behind this page — the 3.15 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs — is documented in the methodology guide. The $2,000 federal credit baked into Friendswood's number is explained, with the before-and-after math, in the tax credit guide.