Heat Pump Payback in Lindenhurst, IL
Will a heat pump pay off in Lindenhurst, IL?
Here in Lindenhurst, the honest answer is that a heat pump raises your annual running cost. Swap a failed furnace and AC for a heat pump rather than buying like-for-like, and the extra cost here runs $5,500. Running costs here land $269 a year higher than the furnace it replaces, so that premium is never recovered. There's no spin on that: Lindenhurst's numbers say wait.
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Why Lindenhurst's climate drives this number
Lindenhurst has a cold winter that leans hard on heating equipment, 5324 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base, and summers add a moderate cooling load, at 777 cooling degree days. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: -0.9°F here (coldest 2024 reading -11°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.68 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, Lindenhurst sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. These numbers come from Waukegan Regional Airport, the closest NOAA station, 8.1 miles out.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 5,030 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $1,085 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 55 Mcf a year at $11.25 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $816 a year including the old AC (electricity here runs 19.06¢/kWh). With running costs higher every year, there is no payback at any purchase price; over 15 years, against a like-for-like replacement, a household here would end $9,540 behind.
How sensitive Lindenhurst's result is to prices
The heat pump would become the cheaper option in Lindenhurst if electricity fell to 13.3¢/kWh (from 19.06¢) or gas rose above $16.11 per Mcf (from $11.25). At today's prices a cheaper quote cannot rescue the gas comparison in Lindenhurst, since there is no yearly saving to recover it from.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Not every home in Lindenhurst has gas service. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Lindenhurst's answer improves. The saving here runs about $1,676 a year, which recovers the extra $10,000 spent going electric in roughly 6 years.
Lindenhurst against the rest of the country
Lindenhurst lands at position 470 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 2439 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). 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 Lindenhurst
About 14,564 people live in Lindenhurst, Illinois, 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.
Line up a few local HVAC quotes before you decide.
Reading further on this page's numbers
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Lindenhurst's 2.68 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Lindenhurst's -0.9°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.