Should Hermitage switch to a heat pump?
In Hermitage, a heat pump would cost more to run each year than what you have now. $3,500 is what Hermitage would pay extra to go electric rather than replace the furnace and AC with the same again, once the $2,000 federal credit is applied. The heat pump would cost about $97 more a year to run than the furnace it replaces — a premium with no payback. There's no spin on that: Hermitage's numbers say wait.
The climate behind Hermitage's payback figure
Degree days tell the story here: Hermitage racks up 5003 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers add a moderate cooling load, with 740 cooling degree days on the cooling side. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 3°F here (record low 0°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.77 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. Hermitage 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. Source: NOAA station YOUNGSTOWN-WARREN REGIONAL AI, 12.1 miles from Hermitage — the closest one on record.
The month-to-month numbers for Hermitage
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 4,573 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $1,080 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 52 Mcf a year at 15.04 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $983 a year (electricity here runs 20.75¢/kWh). Buy it outright, not incrementally, and payback stretches to beyond the 15-year equipment life; over 15 years the net position sits $4,959 behind.
The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with
Not every home in Hermitage has gas service. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Hermitage's answer improves. The saving here runs about $1,748 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 4.6 years.
Where Hermitage ranks in this dataset
Hermitage lands at position 688 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 2313 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). That's the coldest third of the dataset, where climate does most of the work behind this figure.
What to do with this number in Hermitage
About 15,839 people live in Hermitage, Pennsylvania, 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.
Where Hermitage's figure comes from
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Hermitage's 2.77 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. At a 3°F design temperature, Hermitage sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.