Heat Pump Payback in Gillette, WY
Should Gillette switch to a heat pump?
In Gillette, a heat pump would cost more to run each year than what you have now. Swap a failed furnace and AC for a heat pump rather than buying like-for-like, and the extra cost here runs $5,500. Running costs here land $140 a year higher than the furnace it replaces, so that premium is never recovered. That's Gillette's own climate and rates talking, not a hedge or a caveat.
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Gillette's weather, in the numbers that matter
6601 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Gillette has a cold winter that leans hard on heating equipment; the cooling side runs to 756 cooling degree days, where summers add a moderate cooling load. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: -25.1°F here (coldest 2024 reading -40°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.3 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. A cold-climate unit is the right call in Gillette, below 25°F design temperature, a standard heat pump leans hard on electric-resistance backup, which erases most of the savings. Source: NOAA station Gillette-Campbell Co. Airport, 5.1 miles from Gillette, the closest one on record.
Gillette's running-cost comparison, in dollars
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 7,267 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $1,081 a year. That compares with roughly 69 Mcf a year of gas at Gillette's $11.74 per-Mcf rate, about $941 a year with the old AC included, against a local electricity rate of 13.66¢/kWh. Because the heat pump costs more to run here, the gap only widens with time: $7,597 behind after 15 years compared with replacing the furnace and AC like-for-like.
How sensitive Gillette's result is to prices
For the verdict in Gillette to flip, electricity would need to drop to about 11.6¢/kWh from 13.66¢, or gas climb past $13.77 per Mcf from $11.74. A utility offering a lower heat pump rate can change this. Until then, no quote price makes a heat pump pay back against gas in Gillette; the case for one here rests on comfort, cooling, or replacing electric heat instead.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Plenty of homes in Gillette heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Gillette's answer improves. About $1,336 a year comes back this way, enough that the 7.5-year payback clears the $10,000 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.
Where Gillette ranks in this dataset
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Gillette comes in at 81 for heating severity, 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset, and 1216 by population, where 1 is largest. That's the coldest third of the dataset, where climate does most of the work behind this figure.
Next step if you live in Gillette
Gillette, Wyoming is home to about 33,846 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 Gillette, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Line up a few local HVAC quotes before you decide.
Reading further on this page's numbers
Nothing above is a black box: the methodology guide shows the full arithmetic behind Gillette's 2.3 seasonal COP and payback figure. Gillette's -25.1°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.