Heat Pump Payback in Herriman, UT
Herriman, UT: the heat pump payback math
The payback math works in Herriman on paper, past the equipment's own working life. Against a like-for-like gas furnace and AC swap, going electric costs $5,500 more up front here. Lower bills claw that back: about $71 saved annually, for a payback of roughly 77.3 years. Herriman's own numbers say this pencils out only in theory, not in practice.
Checking a different city
Herriman is one of 3206 cities covered here, each run through the same model. Search another below.
The climate behind Herriman's payback figure
5289 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Herriman has a cold winter that leans hard on heating equipment; the cooling side runs to 1255 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 17.6°F, and the coldest daily reading in the 2024 station record was 10.4°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 3.12 for the recommended cold-climate unit. Herriman 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. These numbers come from Bolinder Field Tooele Valley, the closest NOAA station, 19.2 miles out.
Herriman's running-cost comparison, in dollars
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 4,292 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $704 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 55 Mcf a year at $10.19 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $775 a year including the old AC (electricity here runs 13.12¢/kWh). Buying outright rather than at replacement time stretches payback to longer than the 15-year equipment life. Over 15 years, compared with a like-for-like replacement, the heat pump leaves you $4,433 behind.
The break-even point in Herriman
This result holds unless electricity climbs above 15.0¢/kWh (it is 13.12¢ now) or gas drops below $8.90 per Mcf (now $10.19); past either point, gas becomes the cheaper fuel in Herriman. When quotes arrive, compare the heat pump price with a like-for-like furnace and AC replacement: at $71 a year saved, a difference under $497 pays back within 7 years here, and under $710 within 10.
Electric resistance heat in Herriman, compared
Not every home in Herriman 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 $1,267 a year comes back this way, enough that the 7.9-year payback clears the $10,000 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.
Herriman against the rest of the country
Among 3206 cities, Herriman's winter puts it at rank 489 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 639 for population, 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the coldest third of the dataset, where climate does most of the work behind this figure.
Next step if you live in Herriman
About 62,352 people live in Herriman, Utah, 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.
Line up a few local HVAC quotes before you decide.
Reading further on this page's numbers
Every constant behind this page, the 3.12 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs, is documented in the methodology guide. Herriman's 17.6°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.