Is a heat pump worth it in Howard?
Here in Howard, the honest answer is that a heat pump raises your annual running cost. 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). The heat pump would cost about $366 more a year to run than the furnace it replaces — a premium with no payback. There's no spin on that: Howard's numbers say wait.
Why Howard's climate drives this number
5968 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Howard has a cold winter that leans hard on heating equipment; the cooling side runs to 605 cooling degree days, where summers add a moderate cooling load. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: -2.9°F here (record low -9°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.63 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. Howard 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. These numbers come from AUSTIN STRAUBEL INTERNATIONAL, the closest NOAA station, 7 miles out.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 5,746 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $1,182 a year. That compares with roughly 62 Mcf a year of gas at Howard's 10.74 per-Mcf rate — about $815 a year — against a local electricity rate of 18.87¢/kWh. Priced as a standalone purchase rather than against a like-for-like replacement, equipment payback runs past the 15-year equipment life, for a 15-year net position $8,991 behind.
Electric resistance heat in Howard, compared
Plenty of homes in Howard heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. The saving here runs about $1,818 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 4.4 years.
Howard against the rest of the country
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Howard comes in at 248 for heating severity — 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset — and 1786 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 Howard
About 21,961 people live in Howard, Wisconsin, 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.
Line up a few local HVAC quotes before you decide.
More on how this number was built
Every constant behind this page — the 2.63 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs — is documented in the methodology guide. Howard's -2.9°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.