Heat Pump Payback in Kirkwood, MO
Is a heat pump worth it in Kirkwood?
Kirkwood technically pencils out, but only past the point the equipment would need replacing anyway. $5,500 is what Kirkwood would pay extra to go electric rather than replace the furnace and AC with the same again. That premium is recovered through $242 of lower running costs every year, landing the payback clock at roughly 22.8 years. That's a technicality, not a recommendation, for anyone actually living in Kirkwood.
Checking a different city
Kirkwood is one of 3206 cities covered here, each run through the same model. Search another below.
Kirkwood's weather, in the numbers that matter
Kirkwood has a real but manageable winter, 3396 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base, and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, at 2013 cooling degree days. The 99% winter design temperature here, the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average, is 1.9°F, and the coldest daily reading in the 2024 station record was -7.1°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 2.75 for the recommended cold-climate unit. Kirkwood 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. These numbers come from Lambert-St Louis Internationa, the closest NOAA station, 12.3 miles out.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 3,127 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $621 a year. That compares with roughly 35 Mcf a year of gas at Kirkwood's $14.94 per-Mcf rate, about $863 a year with the old AC included, against a local electricity rate of 12.83¢/kWh. If the current system still worked and you replaced it anyway, the full cost would take longer than the 15-year equipment life to earn back; against buying a new furnace and AC regardless, the 15-year total lands $1,874 behind.
What would change Kirkwood's answer
Gas would only overtake the heat pump in Kirkwood if electricity rose past 23.6¢/kWh from 12.83¢, or gas fell under $8.11 per Mcf from $14.94. A useful quote test for Kirkwood: the heat pump is worth it within a decade if it costs less than $2,420 more than replacing the furnace and AC, and within 7 years if the gap is under $1,694.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Not every home in Kirkwood 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. Switching saves about $817 a year here, a heat pump moving heat rather than generating it needs far less electricity than resistance coils, so the extra $10,000 spent up front comes back in about 12.2 years.
How Kirkwood compares nationally
Kirkwood lands at position 1796 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 1373 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
Next step if you live in Kirkwood
Kirkwood, Missouri is home to about 29,348 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 Kirkwood, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Ask a local HVAC contractor for a quote before committing either way.
Reading further on this page's numbers
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Kirkwood's 2.75 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. At a 1.9°F design temperature, Kirkwood sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.