Should Jeffersonville switch to a heat pump?
Here in Jeffersonville, the honest answer is that a heat pump raises your annual running cost. $3,500 is what Jeffersonville 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 $11 more a year to run than the furnace it replaces — a premium with no payback. There's no spin on that: Jeffersonville's numbers say wait.
Why Jeffersonville's climate drives this number
Degree days tell the story here: Jeffersonville racks up 3632 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, with 1460 cooling degree days on the cooling side. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 5°F here (record low 1.9°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.82 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. Jeffersonville 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, BOWMAN FIELD AIRPORT, 7.8 miles from Jeffersonville.
The month-to-month numbers for Jeffersonville
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 3,261 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $767 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 38 Mcf a year at 11.49 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $757 a year (electricity here runs 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 $3,658 behind.
Electric resistance heat in Jeffersonville, compared
Not every home in Jeffersonville has gas service. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. Switching saves about $1,121 a year here — a heat pump moving heat rather than generating it needs far less electricity than resistance coils — so the extra $8,000 spent up front comes back in about 7.1 years.
Where Jeffersonville ranks in this dataset
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Jeffersonville comes in at 1725 for heating severity — 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset — and 771 by population, where 1 is largest. That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
What to do with this number in Jeffersonville
About 52,912 people live in Jeffersonville, 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.
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 2.82 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs — is documented in the methodology guide. Jeffersonville's 5°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.