Will a heat pump pay off in Haverhill, MA?

Haverhill technically pencils out, but only past the point the equipment would need replacing anyway. 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). That premium is recovered through $109 of lower running costs every year, landing the payback clock at roughly 32.2 years. Haverhill's own numbers say this pencils out only in theory, not in practice.

Why Haverhill's climate drives this number

5514 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Haverhill has a cold winter that leans hard on heating equipment; the cooling side runs to 759 cooling degree days, where summers add a moderate cooling load. The 99% winter design temperature here — the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average — is 10°F, against a record low of 3.9°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 2.94 for the recommended cold-climate unit. Haverhill needs the cold-climate class of unit: past a 25°F design temperature a standard heat pump falls back on resistance backup often enough to eat the savings. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, LAWRENCE MUNICIPAL AIRPORT, 4.9 miles from Haverhill.

What it actually costs to run, year to year

Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 4,749 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $1,627 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 57 Mcf a year at 25.06 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $1,736 a year (electricity here runs 30.15¢/kWh). Looked at as a full purchase rather than an incremental one, payback here is roughly 124.2 years, leaving the 15-year total $1,869 behind.

The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with

Gas isn't universal in Haverhill — many houses run on electric heat already. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Haverhill's answer improves. The saving here runs about $2,879 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 2.8 years.

Haverhill against the rest of the country

Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Haverhill comes in at 366 for heating severity — 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset — and 571 by population, where 1 is largest. That's the coldest third of the dataset, where climate does most of the work behind this figure.

Deciding what's next in Haverhill, MA

About 68,291 people live in Haverhill, Massachusetts, 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.

Ask a local HVAC contractor for a quote before committing either way.

Reading further on this page's numbers

Every constant behind this page — the 2.94 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs — is documented in the methodology guide. Haverhill's 10°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.