Heat Pump Payback in Lakewood, WA
Will a heat pump pay off in Lakewood, WA?
Lakewood technically pencils out, but only past the point the equipment would need replacing anyway. $5,500 is what Lakewood would pay extra to go electric rather than replace the furnace and AC with the same again. Lakewood's residents would see roughly $330 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 16.7 years. That's a technicality, not a recommendation, for anyone actually living in Lakewood.
Not the city you meant?
This runs the same numbers for 3206 US cities, not just Lakewood. Look one up here.
Lakewood's weather, in the numbers that matter
4800 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Lakewood has a real but manageable winter; the cooling side runs to 250 cooling degree days, where summers rarely ask much of an air conditioner. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 14.9°F here (coldest 2024 reading 10.6°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 3.06 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. Lakewood 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 McChord AFB Airport, the closest NOAA station, 2.3 miles out.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 3,972 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $597 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 50 Mcf a year at $17.62 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $927 a year including the old AC (electricity here runs 14.27¢/kWh). Priced as a standalone purchase, with a working furnace ripped out early, payback would take longer than the 15-year equipment life. Measured against the like-for-like replacement instead, a household here ends 15 years $552 behind.
How sensitive Lakewood's result is to prices
Gas would only overtake the heat pump in Lakewood if electricity rose past 22.8¢/kWh from 14.27¢, or gas fell under $11.02 per Mcf from $17.62. A useful quote test for Lakewood: the heat pump is worth it within a decade if it costs less than $3,300 more than replacing the furnace and AC, and within 7 years if the gap is under $2,310.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Not every home in Lakewood 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. The saving here runs about $1,183 a year, which recovers the extra $10,000 spent going electric in roughly 8.5 years.
How Lakewood compares nationally
Among 3206 cities, Lakewood's winter puts it at rank 957 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 632 for population, 1 in both cases being the extreme. 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 Lakewood
Lakewood, Washington is home to about 62,709 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 Lakewood, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
Reading further on this page's numbers
Every constant behind this page, the 3.06 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs, is documented in the methodology guide. Lakewood's 14.9°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.