Heat pump vs. gas furnace in Goodyear, AZ
The math in Goodyear isn't close — a heat pump wins outright. 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). Goodyear's residents would see roughly $418 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 2.4 years. Nothing about that conclusion is generic — it's built entirely from Goodyear's own numbers.
The climate behind Goodyear's payback figure
Goodyear barely has a winter to speak of — 730 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base — and summers are severe enough that cooling can dominate the annual bill, at 5318 cooling degree days. 33.8°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here — the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day — with a record low of 30.2°F on file. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 3.21 on the standard unit fit for this climate. A standard ducted system is enough here; Goodyear's design temperature doesn't justify the cold-climate premium. Source: NOAA station PHOENIX GOODYEAR AIRPORT, 11.3 miles from Goodyear — the closest one on record.
The month-to-month numbers for Goodyear
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 576 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $795 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 8 Mcf a year at 18.58 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $1,213 a year (electricity here runs 15.55¢/kWh). Priced as a standalone purchase rather than against a like-for-like replacement, equipment payback runs about 26.3 years, for a 15-year net position $5,275 ahead.
Electric resistance heat in Goodyear, compared
Not every home in Goodyear has gas service. Against electric-resistance heat — baseboard or an electric furnace, both 100% efficient but still just resistance — the case for switching gets stronger here. About $565 a year comes back this way, enough that the 9.7-year payback clears the $5,500 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.
How Goodyear compares nationally
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Goodyear comes in at 2983 for heating severity — 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset — and 255 by population, where 1 is largest. 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 Goodyear
About 118,186 people live in Goodyear, Arizona, 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.
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 3.21 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs — is documented in the methodology guide. See what Goodyear's figure looks like without the $2,000 federal credit in the guide to how that credit moves the payback window.