Should Grenada switch to a heat pump?
This one's marginal in Grenada: it only clears if you stay long enough. Against a like-for-like gas furnace and AC swap, going electric costs $3,500 more up front here (already netting out a $2,000 tax credit). Grenada's residents would see roughly $280 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 12.5 years. It's a genuine toss-up here — Grenada's numbers don't point clearly either way.
How cold Grenada actually gets
Degree days tell the story here: Grenada racks up 1903 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers are severe enough that cooling can dominate the annual bill, with 2708 cooling degree days on the cooling side. 19°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here — the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day — with a record low of 9°F on file. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 3.16 on the cold-climate unit fit for this climate. A cold-climate unit is the right call in Grenada — below 25°F design temperature, a standard heat pump leans hard on electric-resistance backup, which erases most of the savings. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, GREENWOOD-LEFLORE AIRPORT, 25.3 miles from Grenada.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 1,525 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $593 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 20 Mcf a year at 16.64 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $873 a year (electricity here runs 15.47¢/kWh). Looked at as a full purchase rather than an incremental one, payback here is roughly 48.3 years, leaving the 15-year total $694 ahead.
Electric resistance heat in Grenada, compared
Plenty of homes in Grenada heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Against electric-resistance heat — baseboard or an electric furnace, both 100% efficient but still just resistance — the case for switching gets stronger here. Switching saves about $695 a year here — a heat pump moving heat rather than generating it needs far less electricity than resistance coils — so the extra $8,000 spent up front comes back in about 11.5 years.
How Grenada compares nationally
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Grenada comes in at 2483 for heating severity — 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset — and 2792 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 Grenada
Grenada, Mississippi is home to about 12,138 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 Grenada, 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 Grenada's 3.16 seasonal COP and payback figure. Grenada's 19°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.