Is a heat pump worth it in Harrison?
In Harrison, the math is close enough that it comes down to how long you plan to stay. 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). Lower bills claw that back: about $343 saved annually, for a payback of roughly 10.2 years. Whether that's worth it in Harrison depends on how many years you expect to own the place.
Why Harrison's climate drives this number
3165 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Harrison has a real but manageable winter; the cooling side runs to 1530 cooling degree days, where summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating. The 99% winter design temperature here — the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average — is 3.9°F, against a record low of -4°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 2.79 for the recommended cold-climate unit. A cold-climate unit is the right call in Harrison — below 25°F design temperature, a standard heat pump leans hard on electric-resistance backup, which erases most of the savings. Source: NOAA station BOONE COUNTY AIRPORT, 2.8 miles from Harrison — the closest one on record.
The month-to-month numbers for Harrison
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 2,872 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $555 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 33 Mcf a year at 19.25 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $898 a year (electricity here runs 13.28¢/kWh). Buy it outright, not incrementally, and payback stretches to 39.3 years; over 15 years the net position sits $1,647 ahead.
The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with
Gas isn't universal in Harrison — many houses run on electric heat already. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Harrison's answer improves. About $773 a year comes back this way, enough that the 10.4-year payback clears the $8,000 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.
How Harrison compares nationally
Harrison lands at position 1859 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 2555 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
What to do with this number in Harrison
About 13,723 people live in Harrison, Arkansas, 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, there's no cost penalty to waiting until your current furnace or AC actually needs replacing.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
More on how this number was built
Every constant behind this page — the 2.79 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs — is documented in the methodology guide. At a 3.9°F design temperature, Harrison sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.