Should Jacksonville switch to a heat pump?
The math in Jacksonville isn't close — a heat pump wins outright. Swap a failed furnace and AC for a heat pump rather than buying like-for-like, and the extra cost here runs $1,000 after a $2,000 federal tax credit. Lower bills claw that back: about $344 saved annually, for a payback of roughly 2.9 years. Nothing about that conclusion is generic — it's built entirely from Jacksonville's own numbers.
The climate behind Jacksonville's payback figure
Degree days tell the story here: Jacksonville racks up 709 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers are severe enough that cooling can dominate the annual bill, with 3536 cooling degree days on the cooling side. 34°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here — the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day — with a record low of 33.1°F on file. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 3.21 on the standard unit fit for this climate. A standard ducted system is enough here; Jacksonville's design temperature doesn't justify the cold-climate premium. These numbers come from JACKSONVILLE NAS, the closest NOAA station, 7.2 miles out.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 559 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $551 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 7 Mcf a year at 25.48 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $895 a year (electricity here runs 15.43¢/kWh). Looked at as a full purchase rather than an incremental one, payback here is roughly 32 years, leaving the 15-year total $4,156 ahead.
The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with
Gas isn't universal in Jacksonville — many houses run on electric heat already. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. About $433 a year comes back this way, enough that the 12.7-year payback clears the $5,500 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.
Where Jacksonville ranks in this dataset
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Jacksonville comes in at 2988 for heating severity — 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset — and 10 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.
Next step for 1,009,833 people in Jacksonville
About 1,009,833 people live in Jacksonville, Florida, 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, it's worth getting quotes before your current system fails, not after.
Ask a local HVAC contractor for a quote before committing either way.
More on how this number was built
Every constant behind this page — the 3.21 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs — is documented in the methodology guide. See what Jacksonville's figure looks like without the $2,000 federal credit in the guide to how that credit moves the payback window.