Fullerton, CA: the heat pump payback math
Fullerton 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). That premium is recovered through $125 of lower running costs every year, landing the payback clock at roughly 8 years. That's a real payback, built from Fullerton's own climate and utility rates, not a national guess.
The climate behind Fullerton's payback figure
1315 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Fullerton barely has a winter to speak of; the cooling side runs to 1024 cooling degree days, where summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating. 39°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here — the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day — with a record low of 35.1°F on file. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 3.36 on the standard unit fit for this climate. A standard ducted system is enough here; Fullerton's design temperature doesn't justify the cold-climate premium. Source: NOAA station FULLERTON MUNICIPAL ARPT, 3.1 miles from Fullerton — the closest one on record.
Fullerton's running-cost comparison, in dollars
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 991 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $612 a year. That compares with roughly 14 Mcf a year of gas at Fullerton's 22.01 per-Mcf rate — about $737 a year — against a local electricity rate of 32.83¢/kWh. Buy it outright, not incrementally, and payback stretches to 87.9 years; over 15 years the net position sits $877 ahead.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Not every home in Fullerton has gas service. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Fullerton's answer improves. Switching saves about $917 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 6 years.
Fullerton against the rest of the country
Fullerton lands at position 2751 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 202 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 Fullerton
About 140,054 people live in Fullerton, California, and every number on this page is what a contractor would actually work from when quoting a system here — the point isn't to replace that quote, it's to tell you whether to bother asking for one. Here, it's worth getting quotes before your current system fails, not after.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Fullerton's 3.36 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. See what Fullerton's figure looks like without the $2,000 federal credit in the guide to how that credit moves the payback window.