Heat Pump Payback in Kokomo, IN
Will a heat pump pay off in Kokomo, IN?
In Kokomo, a heat pump would cost more to run each year than what you have now. Swap a failed furnace and AC for a heat pump rather than buying like-for-like, and the extra cost here runs $5,500. The heat pump would cost about $159 more a year to run than the furnace it replaces, a premium with no payback. There's no spin on that: Kokomo's numbers say wait.
Checking a different city
This runs the same numbers for 3206 US cities, not just Kokomo. Look one up here.
The climate behind Kokomo's payback figure
Degree days tell the story here: Kokomo racks up 4704 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers add a moderate cooling load, with 854 cooling degree days on the cooling side. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: -5.1°F here (coldest 2024 reading -8°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.58 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. A cold-climate unit is the right call in Kokomo, below 25°F design temperature, a standard heat pump leans hard on electric-resistance backup, which erases most of the savings. Source: NOAA station Kokomo Municipal Airport, 5.6 miles from Kokomo, 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 4,617 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $910 a year. That compares with roughly 49 Mcf a year of gas at Kokomo's $11.49 per-Mcf rate, about $751 a year with the old AC included, against a local electricity rate of 17.03¢/kWh. With running costs higher every year, there is no payback at any purchase price; over 15 years, against a like-for-like replacement, a household here would end $7,883 behind.
What would change Kokomo's answer
The heat pump would become the cheaper option in Kokomo if electricity fell to 13.3¢/kWh (from 17.03¢) or gas rose above $14.73 per Mcf (from $11.49). At today's prices a cheaper quote cannot rescue the gas comparison in Kokomo, since there is no yearly saving to recover it from.
The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with
Plenty of homes in Kokomo heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. 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 $1,307 a year, which recovers the extra $10,000 spent going electric in roughly 7.7 years.
Where Kokomo ranks in this dataset
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Kokomo comes in at 1013 for heating severity, 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset, and 668 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 if you live in Kokomo
About 60,093 people live in Kokomo, 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.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
Reading further on this page's numbers
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Kokomo's 2.58 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Kokomo's -5.1°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.