Should Houston switch to a heat pump?
A heat pump earns back its extra cost in Houston within a sensible timeframe. Against a like-for-like gas furnace and AC swap, going electric costs $1,000 more up front here (already netting out a $2,000 tax credit). Houston's residents would see roughly $290 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 3.4 years. The window here is reasonable, and it's specific to what Houston actually pays for power and gas.
How cold Houston actually gets
776 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Houston barely has a winter to speak of; the cooling side runs to 3294 cooling degree days, where summers are severe enough that cooling can dominate the annual bill. 30.2°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here — the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day — with a record low of 17.6°F on file. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 3.1 on the standard unit fit for this climate. Houston's winters don't get cold enough to need the cold-climate premium — a standard unit holds up fine. These numbers come from HOUSTON DUNN HELISTOP, the closest NOAA station, 4.8 miles out.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 634 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $556 a year on electricity. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 8 Mcf a year at 19.42 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $846 a year (electricity here runs 16.15¢/kWh). Priced as a standalone purchase rather than against a like-for-like replacement, equipment payback runs about 37.9 years, for a 15-year net position $3,357 ahead.
Electric resistance heat in Houston, compared
Plenty of homes in Houston 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. Switching saves about $451 a year here — a heat pump moving heat rather than generating it needs far less electricity than resistance coils — so the extra $5,500 spent up front comes back in about 12.2 years.
How Houston compares nationally
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Houston comes in at 2977 for heating severity — 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset — and 4 by population, where 1 is largest. That's the mildest third of cities covered, where utility rates carry more of the answer than climate does.
Deciding what's next in Houston, TX
Houston, Texas is home to about 2,390,125 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. Given the math above, Houston is a place worth lining up quotes ahead of a breakdown, not waiting for one.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
More on how this number was built
Every constant behind this page — the 3.1 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs — is documented in the methodology guide. The $2,000 federal credit baked into Houston's number is explained, with the before-and-after math, in the tax credit guide.