Will a heat pump pay off in Johnstown, CO?

In Johnstown, a heat pump would cost more to run each year than what you have now. $3,500 is what Johnstown 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. Running costs here land $203 a year HIGHER than the furnace it replaces, so that premium is never recovered. That's Johnstown's own climate and rates talking, not a hedge or a caveat.

Johnstown's weather, in the numbers that matter

5505 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Johnstown has a cold winter that leans hard on heating equipment; the cooling side runs to 915 cooling degree days, where summers add a moderate cooling load. The 99% winter design temperature here — the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average — is -7.1°F, against a record low of -22°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 2.53 for the recommended cold-climate unit. Johnstown 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, FORT COLLINS LOVELAND AP, 11.3 miles from Johnstown.

The month-to-month numbers for Johnstown

Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 5,510 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $1,040 a year. That compares with roughly 57 Mcf a year of gas at Johnstown's 11.17 per-Mcf rate — about $836 a year — against a local electricity rate of 16.53¢/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 $6,549 behind.

Electric resistance heat in Johnstown, compared

Plenty of homes in Johnstown heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Johnstown's answer improves. Switching saves about $1,460 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 5.5 years.

Johnstown against the rest of the country

Among 3206 cities, Johnstown's winter puts it at rank 373 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 1876 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.

Deciding what's next in Johnstown, CO

Johnstown, Colorado is home to about 20,639 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 Johnstown, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.

Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.

Reading further on this page's numbers

Nothing above is a black box: the methodology guide shows the full arithmetic behind Johnstown's 2.53 seasonal COP and payback figure. At a -7.1°F design temperature, Johnstown sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.