Kirksville, MO: the heat pump payback math
Kirksville technically pencils out, but only past the point the equipment would need replacing anyway. 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. That premium is recovered through $174 of lower running costs every year, landing the payback clock at roughly 20.1 years. That's a technicality, not a recommendation, for anyone actually living in Kirksville.
How cold Kirksville actually gets
4699 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Kirksville has a real but manageable winter; the cooling side runs to 1026 cooling degree days, where summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: -9°F here (record low -17°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.48 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. Below the 25°F line where a standard machine starts leaning on resistance backup, Kirksville sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. Source: NOAA station KIRKSVILLE REGIONAL ARPT, 7.2 miles from Kirksville — the closest one on record.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 4,798 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $728 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 49 Mcf a year at 14.94 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $902 a year (electricity here runs 12.83¢/kWh). Looked at as a full purchase rather than an incremental one, payback here is roughly 77.6 years, leaving the 15-year total $891 behind.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Not every home in Kirksville has gas service. Against electric-resistance heat — baseboard or an electric furnace, both 100% efficient but still just resistance — the case for switching gets stronger here. The saving here runs about $969 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 8.3 years.
How Kirksville compares nationally
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Kirksville comes in at 1014 for heating severity — 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset — and 2112 by population, where 1 is largest. That's the coldest third of the dataset, where climate does most of the work behind this figure.
Next step for 17,841 people in Kirksville
Kirksville, Missouri is home to about 17,841 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 Kirksville, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
More on how this number was built
Every constant behind this page — the 2.48 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs — is documented in the methodology guide. At a -9°F design temperature, Kirksville sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.