Will a heat pump pay off in Hollywood, FL?
In Hollywood, a heat pump is the cheaper choice, and not by a little. $1,000 is what Hollywood 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. That premium is recovered through $350 of lower running costs every year, landing the payback clock at roughly 2.9 years. Nothing about that conclusion is generic — it's built entirely from Hollywood's own numbers.
The climate behind Hollywood's payback figure
Degree days tell the story here: Hollywood racks up 59 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers are severe enough that cooling can dominate the annual bill, with 4980 cooling degree days on the cooling side. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 52°F here (record low 51.1°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 3.75 for the standard class of unit this climate calls for. A standard ducted system is enough here; Hollywood's design temperature doesn't justify the cold-climate premium. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, FT LAUD/HOLLYWOOD INTL APT, 3.3 miles from Hollywood.
The month-to-month numbers for Hollywood
A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 40 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $661 a year on electricity. Hollywood's gas rate of 25.48 per Mcf, applied to the 1 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts its running cost near $1,012 a year, against 15.43¢ per kWh for electricity. Looked at as a full purchase rather than an incremental one, payback here is roughly 31.4 years, leaving the 15-year total $4,253 ahead.
Electric resistance heat in Hollywood, compared
Plenty of homes in Hollywood 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 $358 a year, which recovers the extra $5,500 spent going electric in roughly 15.4 years.
How Hollywood compares nationally
Among 3206 cities, Hollywood's winter puts it at rank 3172 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 169 for population — 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the mildest third of cities covered, where utility rates carry more of the answer than climate does.
What to do with this number in Hollywood
About 159,073 people live in Hollywood, Florida, 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, it's worth getting quotes before your current system fails, not after.
Ask a local HVAC contractor for a quote before committing either way.
Where Hollywood's figure comes from
Every constant behind this page — the 3.75 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs — is documented in the methodology guide. See what Hollywood's figure looks like without the $2,000 federal credit in the guide to how that credit moves the payback window.