Is a heat pump worth it in Keene?

Here in Keene, the honest answer is that a heat pump raises your annual running cost. Swap a failed furnace and AC for a heat pump rather than buying like-for-like, and the extra cost here runs $3,500 after a $2,000 federal tax credit. Unfortunately the electric bill outweighs the gas bill it replaces by about $312 a year here, so the extra spend stays unrecovered. That's Keene's own climate and rates talking, not a hedge or a caveat.

Keene's weather, in the numbers that matter

Degree days tell the story here: Keene racks up 6260 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers add a moderate cooling load, with 505 cooling degree days on the cooling side. 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. Keene 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. Source: NOAA station DILLANT-HOPKINS AIRPORT, 4.2 miles from Keene — the closest one on record.

What it actually costs to run, year to year

A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 5,915 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $1,701 a year on electricity. That compares with roughly 65 Mcf a year of gas at Keene's 18.61 per-Mcf rate — about $1,389 a year — against a local electricity rate of 26.80¢/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 $8,177 behind.

If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas

Not every home in Keene has gas service. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. The saving here runs about $2,723 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 2.9 years.

Keene against the rest of the country

Among 3206 cities, Keene's winter puts it at rank 128 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 1716 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 Keene, NH

Keene, New Hampshire is home to about 23,036 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 Keene, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.

Line up a few local HVAC quotes before you decide.

More on how this number was built

Every constant behind this page — the 2.68 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs — is documented in the methodology guide. Keene's -0.9°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.