Should Hyrum switch to a heat pump?
Hyrum is a place where a heat pump genuinely costs more to operate than the alternative. $3,500 is what Hyrum 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 $49 more a year to run than the furnace it replaces — a premium with no payback. That's Hyrum's own climate and rates talking, not a hedge or a caveat.
How cold Hyrum actually gets
Degree days tell the story here: Hyrum racks up 6351 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers add a moderate cooling load, with 765 cooling degree days on the cooling side. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 1.9°F here (record low -15°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.75 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. Hyrum 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. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, LOGAN-CACHE AIRPORT, 10.7 miles from Hyrum.
Hyrum's running-cost comparison, in dollars
A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 5,848 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $853 a year on electricity. Hyrum's gas rate of 10.19 per Mcf, applied to the 66 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts its running cost near $804 a year, against 13.12¢ 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 $4,231 behind.
Electric resistance heat in Hyrum, compared
Plenty of homes in Hyrum 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.
Where Hyrum ranks in this dataset
Among 3206 cities, Hyrum's winter puts it at rank 111 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 2981 for population — 1 in both cases being the extreme. 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 Hyrum
Hyrum, Utah is home to about 11,043 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. In Hyrum, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
Where Hyrum's figure comes from
Nothing above is a black box: the methodology guide shows the full arithmetic behind Hyrum's 2.75 seasonal COP and payback figure. Hyrum's 1.9°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.