Is a heat pump worth it in Highland?

Highland 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). Highland's residents would see roughly $50 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 69.5 years. That's a technicality, not a recommendation, for anyone actually living in Highland.

Highland's weather, in the numbers that matter

5203 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Highland has a cold winter that leans hard on heating equipment; the cooling side runs to 1246 cooling degree days, where summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 12.9°F here (record low 12°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 3.01 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. A cold-climate unit is the right call in Highland — below 25°F design temperature, a standard heat pump leans hard on electric-resistance backup, which erases most of the savings. These numbers come from PROVO MUNICIPAL AIRPORT, the closest NOAA station, 14.9 miles out.

Highland's running-cost comparison, in dollars

A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 4,377 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $714 a year on electricity. That compares with roughly 54 Mcf a year of gas at Highland's 10.19 per-Mcf rate — about $764 a year — against a local electricity rate of 13.12¢/kWh. Looked at as a full purchase rather than an incremental one, payback here is roughly 267.9 years, leaving the 15-year total $2,744 behind.

If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas

Gas isn't universal in Highland — many houses run on electric heat already. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. The saving here runs about $1,227 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 6.5 years.

Highland against the rest of the country

Among 3206 cities, Highland's winter puts it at rank 569 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 1834 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 for 21,146 people in Highland

Highland, Utah is home to about 21,146 people, and the figures above are the same ones a local HVAC contractor uses to size and quote a system — this site doesn't guess where a real quote would land, it just tells you whether it's worth asking for one. In Highland, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.

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

Reading further on this page's numbers

The methodology guide walks through exactly how Highland's 3.01 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Highland's 12.9°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.