Larkspur, CA: the heat pump payback math
Larkspur is a place where a heat pump genuinely costs more to operate than the alternative. Swap a failed furnace and AC for a heat pump rather than buying like-for-like, and the extra cost here runs $1,000 after a $2,000 federal tax credit. Unfortunately the electric bill outweighs the gas bill it replaces by about $3 a year here, so the extra spend stays unrecovered. That's Larkspur's own climate and rates talking, not a hedge or a caveat.
How cold Larkspur actually gets
Degree days tell the story here: Larkspur racks up 2538 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers rarely ask much of an air conditioner, with 78 cooling degree days on the cooling side. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 45.1°F here (record low 43°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 3.54 for the standard class of unit this climate calls for. Larkspur's winters don't get cold enough to need the cold-climate premium — a standard unit holds up fine. Source: NOAA station RICHMOND, 7.1 miles from Larkspur — the closest one on record.
The month-to-month numbers for Larkspur
A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 1,815 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $618 a year on electricity. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 26 Mcf a year at 22.01 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $615 a year (electricity here runs 32.83¢/kWh). Priced as a standalone purchase rather than against a like-for-like replacement, equipment payback runs past the 15-year equipment life, for a 15-year net position $1,043 behind.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Gas isn't universal in Larkspur — many houses run on electric heat already. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Larkspur's answer improves. The saving here runs about $1,525 a year, which recovers the extra $5,500 spent going electric in roughly 3.6 years.
Larkspur against the rest of the country
Larkspur lands at position 2143 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 2679 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 12,807 people in Larkspur
Larkspur, California is home to about 12,807 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 Larkspur, 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
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Larkspur's 3.54 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Larkspur is one of the cities where running costs land higher every year, not just slower to pay back — the guide to where this happens lays out why.