Will a heat pump pay off in Lake in the Hills, IL?

In Lake in the Hills, 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 $3,500 after a $2,000 federal tax credit. Running costs here land $295 a year HIGHER than the furnace it replaces, so that premium is never recovered. There's no spin on that: Lake in the Hills's numbers say wait.

Why Lake in the Hills's climate drives this number

5064 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Lake in the Hills has a cold winter that leans hard on heating equipment; the cooling side runs to 915 cooling degree days, where summers add a moderate cooling load. The 99% winter design temperature here — the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average — is -7.1°F, against a record low of -14.1°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 2.53 for the recommended cold-climate unit. Lake in the Hills 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. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, DUPAGE AIRPORT, 18.7 miles from Lake in the Hills.

The month-to-month numbers for Lake in the Hills

Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 5,068 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $1,115 a year. Lake in the Hills's gas rate of 11.25 per Mcf, applied to the 53 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts its running cost near $819 a year, against 19.06¢ per kWh for electricity. Looked at as a full purchase rather than an incremental one, payback here is longer than the 15-year equipment life, leaving the 15-year total $7,930 behind.

Electric resistance heat in Lake in the Hills, compared

Not every home in Lake in the Hills 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 $1,555 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 5.1 years.

Lake in the Hills against the rest of the country

Lake in the Hills lands at position 634 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 1398 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). That's the coldest third of the dataset, where climate does most of the work behind this figure.

What to do with this number in Lake in the Hills

About 28,706 people live in Lake in the Hills, Illinois, 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 Lake in the Hills's 2.53 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. At a -7.1°F design temperature, Lake in the Hills sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.