Lebanon, PA: the heat pump payback math
In Lebanon, a heat pump would cost more to run each year than what you have now. Against a like-for-like gas furnace and AC swap, going electric costs $3,500 more up front here (already netting out a $2,000 tax credit). Unfortunately the electric bill outweighs the gas bill it replaces by about $4 a year here, so the extra spend stays unrecovered. That's Lebanon's own climate and rates talking, not a hedge or a caveat.
Lebanon's weather, in the numbers that matter
Degree days tell the story here: Lebanon racks up 4401 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, with 1067 cooling degree days on the cooling side. 9.3°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here — the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day — with a record low of 2.5°F on file. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 2.92 on the cold-climate unit fit for this climate. A cold-climate unit is the right call in Lebanon — below 25°F design temperature, a standard heat pump leans hard on electric-resistance backup, which erases most of the savings. Source: NOAA station MUIR ARMY AIRFIELD (FORT INDI, 9.9 miles from Lebanon — the closest one on record.
Lebanon's running-cost comparison, in dollars
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 3,816 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $981 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 46 Mcf a year at 15.04 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $976 a year (electricity here runs 20.75¢/kWh). Buy it outright, not incrementally, and payback stretches to beyond the 15-year equipment life; over 15 years the net position sits $3,566 behind.
Electric resistance heat in Lebanon, compared
Gas isn't universal in Lebanon — many houses run on electric heat already. 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 $1,619 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 4.9 years.
How Lebanon compares nationally
Among 3206 cities, Lebanon's winter puts it at rank 1228 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 1511 for population — 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
Deciding what's next in Lebanon, PA
Lebanon, Pennsylvania is home to about 26,456 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 Lebanon, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Line up a few local HVAC quotes before you decide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Lebanon's 2.92 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Lebanon's 9.3°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.