Should Lake Havasu City switch to a heat pump?
In Lake Havasu City, a heat pump is the cheaper choice, and not by a little. $1,000 is what Lake Havasu City 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. Lake Havasu City's residents would see roughly $436 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 2.3 years. Nothing about that conclusion is generic — it's built entirely from Lake Havasu City's own numbers.
The climate behind Lake Havasu City's payback figure
1055 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Lake Havasu City barely has a winter to speak of; the cooling side runs to 5306 cooling degree days, where summers are severe enough that cooling can dominate the annual bill. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 30°F here (record low 28.9°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 3.09 for the standard class of unit this climate calls for. A standard ducted system is enough here; Lake Havasu City's design temperature doesn't justify the cold-climate premium. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, NEEDLES AIRPORT, 25.5 miles from Lake Havasu City.
The month-to-month numbers for Lake Havasu City
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 865 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $838 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 11 Mcf a year at 18.58 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $1,273 a year (electricity here runs 15.55¢/kWh). Looked at as a full purchase rather than an incremental one, payback here is roughly 25.3 years, leaving the 15-year total $5,533 ahead.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Gas isn't universal in Lake Havasu City — many houses run on electric heat already. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Lake Havasu City's answer improves. Switching saves about $647 a year here — a heat pump moving heat rather than generating it needs far less electricity than resistance coils — so the extra $5,500 spent up front comes back in about 8.5 years.
How Lake Havasu City compares nationally
Lake Havasu City lands at position 2867 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 687 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). That's the mildest third of cities covered, where utility rates carry more of the answer than climate does.
Next step for 59,037 people in Lake Havasu City
About 59,037 people live in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, 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, it's worth getting quotes before your current system fails, not after.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Lake Havasu City's 3.09 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. See what Lake Havasu City's figure looks like without the $2,000 federal credit in the guide to how that credit moves the payback window.