Should Hobart switch to a heat pump?
In Hobart, a heat pump would cost more to run each year than what you have now. Swap a failed furnace and AC for a heat pump rather than buying like-for-like, and the extra cost here runs $3,500 after a $2,000 federal tax credit. Unfortunately the electric bill outweighs the gas bill it replaces by about $120 a year here, so the extra spend stays unrecovered. There's no spin on that: Hobart's numbers say wait.
Why Hobart's climate drives this number
Degree days tell the story here: Hobart racks up 4836 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, with 1011 cooling degree days on the cooling side. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: -0.4°F here (record low -9.4°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.69 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. Hobart 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 GARY/CHICAGO AIRPORT, 10.2 miles from Hobart — the closest one on record.
Hobart's running-cost comparison, in dollars
A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 4,552 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $922 a year on electricity. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 50 Mcf a year at 11.49 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $802 a year (electricity here runs 17.03¢/kWh). Looked at as a full purchase rather than an incremental one, payback here is longer than the 15-year equipment life, leaving the 15-year total $5,303 behind.
Electric resistance heat in Hobart, compared
Plenty of homes in Hobart heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Against electric-resistance heat — baseboard or an electric furnace, both 100% efficient but still just resistance — the case for switching gets stronger here. The saving here runs about $1,386 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 5.8 years.
Where Hobart ranks in this dataset
Among 3206 cities, Hobart's winter puts it at rank 934 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 1369 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.
What to do with this number in Hobart
About 29,418 people live in Hobart, Indiana, 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.
More on how this number was built
Every constant behind this page — the 2.69 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs — is documented in the methodology guide. At a -0.4°F design temperature, Hobart sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.