Heat pump vs. gas furnace in Logan, UT
Logan 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 $3,500 after a $2,000 federal tax credit. Running costs here land $49 a year HIGHER than the furnace it replaces, so that premium is never recovered. That's Logan's own climate and rates talking, not a hedge or a caveat.
How cold Logan actually gets
Degree days tell the story here: Logan racks up 6351 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers add a moderate cooling load, with 765 cooling degree days on the cooling side. 1.9°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here — the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day — with a record low of -15°F on file. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 2.75 on the cold-climate unit fit for this climate. Logan 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. Source: NOAA station LOGAN-CACHE AIRPORT, 3.3 miles from Logan — the closest one on record.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 5,848 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $853 a year. That compares with roughly 66 Mcf a year of gas at Logan's 10.19 per-Mcf rate — about $804 a year — against a local electricity rate of 13.12¢/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 $4,231 behind.
Electric resistance heat in Logan, compared
Plenty of homes in Logan heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. The saving here runs about $1,387 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 5.8 years.
How Logan compares nationally
Logan lands at position 108 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 723 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.
Deciding what's next in Logan, UT
Logan, Utah is home to about 56,770 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 Logan, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Ask a local HVAC contractor for a quote before committing either way.
Where Logan's figure comes from
Nothing above is a black box: the methodology guide shows the full arithmetic behind Logan's 2.75 seasonal COP and payback figure. Logan's 1.9°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.