Is a heat pump worth it in Hopkins?
In Hopkins, a heat pump would cost more to run each year than what you have now. $3,500 is what Hopkins 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. The heat pump would cost about $189 more a year to run than the furnace it replaces — a premium with no payback. There's no spin on that: Hopkins's numbers say wait.
Why Hopkins's climate drives this number
Hopkins has a cold winter that leans hard on heating equipment — 6064 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base — and summers add a moderate cooling load, at 831 cooling degree days. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: -6°F here (record low -9.9°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.56 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. Hopkins 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 FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT, 7.2 miles from Hopkins — the closest one on record.
Hopkins's running-cost comparison, in dollars
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 5,998 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $1,051 a year. Hopkins's gas rate of 10.98 per Mcf, applied to the 63 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts its running cost near $862 a year, against 15.67¢ per kWh for electricity. Buy it outright, not incrementally, and payback stretches to beyond the 15-year equipment life; over 15 years the net position sits $6,331 behind.
Electric resistance heat in Hopkins, compared
Not every home in Hopkins 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. Switching saves about $1,524 a year here — a heat pump moving heat rather than generating it needs far less electricity than resistance coils — so the extra $8,000 spent up front comes back in about 5.2 years.
How Hopkins compares nationally
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Hopkins comes in at 190 for heating severity — 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset — and 1971 by population, where 1 is largest. 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 Hopkins
About 19,462 people live in Hopkins, Minnesota, 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.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
Reading further on this page's numbers
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Hopkins's 2.56 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Hopkins's -6°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.