Heat Pump Payback in Hickory Hills, IL
Will a heat pump pay off in Hickory Hills, IL?
Hickory Hills is a place where a heat pump genuinely costs more to operate than the alternative. Swap a failed furnace and AC for a heat pump rather than buying like-for-like, and the extra cost here runs $5,500. The heat pump would cost about $151 more a year to run than the furnace it replaces, a premium with no payback. There's no spin on that: Hickory Hills's numbers say wait.
Compare against another city
Hickory Hills is one of 3206 cities covered here, each run through the same model. Search another below.
Why Hickory Hills's climate drives this number
Degree days tell the story here: Hickory Hills racks up 4543 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, with 1348 cooling degree days on the cooling side. The 99% winter design temperature here, the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average, is 1.9°F, and the coldest daily reading in the 2024 station record was -9°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 2.75 for the recommended cold-climate unit. Hickory Hills 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 Chicago Midway International Airport, 5.8 miles from Hickory Hills, the closest one on record.
The yearly running costs in Hickory Hills
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 4,183 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $1,016 a year. Hickory Hills's gas rate of $11.25 per Mcf, applied to the 47 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts the current furnace-and-AC running cost near $865 a year, against 19.06¢ per kWh for electricity. With running costs higher every year, there is no payback at any purchase price; over 15 years, against a like-for-like replacement, a household here would end $7,767 behind.
The break-even point in Hickory Hills
The heat pump would become the cheaper option in Hickory Hills if electricity fell to 14.8¢/kWh (from 19.06¢) or gas rose above $14.44 per Mcf (from $11.25). At today's prices a cheaper quote cannot rescue the gas comparison in Hickory Hills, since there is no yearly saving to recover it from.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Plenty of homes in Hickory Hills heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Hickory Hills's answer improves. The saving here runs about $1,509 a year, which recovers the extra $10,000 spent going electric in roughly 6.6 years.
Where Hickory Hills ranks in this dataset
Among 3206 cities, Hickory Hills's winter puts it at rank 1162 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 2496 for population, 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
Next step if you live in Hickory Hills
About 14,118 people live in Hickory Hills, Illinois, 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.
Where Hickory Hills's figure comes from
Every constant behind this page, the 2.75 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs, is documented in the methodology guide. Hickory Hills's 1.9°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.