Should Huntington switch to a heat pump?
In Huntington, a heat pump would cost more to run each year than what you have now. 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 $128 more a year to run than the furnace it replaces — a premium with no payback. There's no spin on that: Huntington's numbers say wait.
The climate behind Huntington's payback figure
Huntington has a real but manageable winter — 4861 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base — and summers add a moderate cooling load, at 963 cooling degree days. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: -0.9°F here (record low -6°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.68 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. A cold-climate unit is the right call in Huntington — below 25°F design temperature, a standard heat pump leans hard on electric-resistance backup, which erases most of the savings. Source: NOAA station FORT WAYNE INTERNATIONAL AIRP, 16.8 miles from Huntington — the closest one on record.
Huntington's running-cost comparison, in dollars
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 4,593 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $922 a year. That compares with roughly 51 Mcf a year of gas at Huntington's 11.49 per-Mcf rate — about $794 a year — against a local electricity rate of 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 $5,416 behind.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Plenty of homes in Huntington 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 $1,387 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 5.8 years.
How Huntington compares nationally
Huntington lands at position 890 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 2190 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). That's the coldest third of the dataset, where climate does most of the work behind this figure.
Next step for 17,033 people in Huntington
About 17,033 people live in Huntington, 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.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Huntington's 2.68 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. At a -0.9°F design temperature, Huntington sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.