Should Lake Mary switch to a heat pump?

Lake Mary clears a genuine payback here, inside a reasonable stretch of years. Against a like-for-like gas furnace and AC swap, going electric costs $1,000 more up front here (already netting out a $2,000 tax credit). That premium is recovered through $313 of lower running costs every year, landing the payback clock at roughly 3.2 years. That's a real payback, built from Lake Mary's own climate and utility rates, not a national guess.

The climate behind Lake Mary's payback figure

497 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Lake Mary barely has a winter to speak of; the cooling side runs to 3473 cooling degree days, where summers are severe enough that cooling can dominate the annual bill. The 99% winter design temperature here — the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average — is 41°F, against a record low of 37.9°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 3.42 for the recommended standard unit. A standard ducted system is enough here; Lake Mary's design temperature doesn't justify the cold-climate premium. Source: NOAA station ORLANDO SANFORD AIRPORT, 5.6 miles from Lake Mary — the closest one on record.

The month-to-month numbers for Lake Mary

Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 368 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $514 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 5 Mcf a year at 25.48 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $826 a year (electricity here runs 15.43¢/kWh). Looked at as a full purchase rather than an incremental one, payback here is roughly 35.2 years, leaving the 15-year total $3,691 ahead.

Electric resistance heat in Lake Mary, compared

Not every home in Lake Mary has gas service. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Lake Mary's answer improves. Switching saves about $375 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 14.7 years.

Lake Mary against the rest of the country

Lake Mary lands at position 3060 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 2195 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 16,989 people in Lake Mary

About 16,989 people live in Lake Mary, Florida, 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.

Where Lake Mary's figure comes from

Every constant behind this page — the 3.42 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs — is documented in the methodology guide. See what Lake Mary's figure looks like without the $2,000 federal credit in the guide to how that credit moves the payback window.