Heat pump vs. gas furnace in Lebanon, TN
Lebanon technically pencils out, but only past the point the equipment would need replacing anyway. 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). Lebanon's residents would see roughly $108 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 32.5 years. Lebanon's own numbers say this pencils out only in theory, not in practice.
The climate behind Lebanon's payback figure
3001 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Lebanon has a real but manageable winter; the cooling side runs to 1705 cooling degree days, where summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 7°F here (record low -7.6°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.87 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. Below the 25°F line where a standard machine starts leaning on resistance backup, Lebanon sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. Source: NOAA station SMYRNA AIRPORT, 16.4 miles from Lebanon — the closest one on record.
The month-to-month numbers for Lebanon
A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 2,648 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $569 a year on electricity. That compares with roughly 31 Mcf a year of gas at Lebanon's 11.84 per-Mcf rate — about $677 a year — against a local electricity rate of 13.87¢/kWh. Looked at as a full purchase rather than an incremental one, payback here is roughly 125.4 years, leaving the 15-year total $1,885 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. About $792 a year comes back this way, enough that the 10.1-year payback clears the $8,000 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.
Where Lebanon ranks in this dataset
Lebanon lands at position 1931 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 789 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
What to do with this number in Lebanon
About 51,501 people live in Lebanon, Tennessee, 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.
Ask a local HVAC contractor for a quote before committing either way.
Reading further on this page's numbers
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Lebanon's 2.87 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Lebanon's 7°F design temperature is below the 25°F line, which is why a cold-climate unit is the right call here — see what that changes in the cold-climate unit guide.