Heat Pump Payback in Longview, WA
Should Longview switch to a heat pump?
Longview technically pencils out, but only past the point the equipment would need replacing anyway. Swap a failed furnace and AC for a heat pump rather than buying like-for-like, and the extra cost here runs $5,500. Longview's residents would see roughly $328 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 16.8 years. Longview's own numbers say this pencils out only in theory, not in practice.
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Why Longview's climate drives this number
4565 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Longview has a real but manageable winter; the cooling side runs to 190 cooling degree days, where summers rarely ask much of an air conditioner. The 99% winter design temperature here, the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average, is 19°F, and the coldest daily reading in the 2024 station record was 10°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 3.16 for the recommended cold-climate unit. Below the 25°F line where a standard machine starts leaning on resistance backup, Longview sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, Kelso-Longview Airport, 3.9 miles from Longview.
Longview's running-cost comparison, in dollars
A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 3,658 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $545 a year on electricity. Longview's gas rate of $17.62 per Mcf, applied to the 48 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts the current furnace-and-AC running cost near $873 a year, against 14.27¢ per kWh for electricity. Priced as a standalone purchase, with a working furnace ripped out early, payback would take longer than the 15-year equipment life. Measured against the like-for-like replacement instead, a household here ends 15 years $584 behind.
What would change Longview's answer
This result holds unless electricity climbs above 23.4¢/kWh (it is 14.27¢ now) or gas drops below $10.73 per Mcf (now $17.62); past either point, gas becomes the cheaper fuel in Longview. When quotes arrive, compare the heat pump price with a like-for-like furnace and AC replacement: at $328 a year saved, a difference under $2,296 pays back within 7 years here, and under $3,280 within 10.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Gas isn't universal in Longview, many houses run on electric heat already. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. The saving here runs about $1,140 a year, which recovers the extra $10,000 spent going electric in roughly 8.8 years.
Where Longview ranks in this dataset
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Longview comes in at 1124 for heating severity, 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset, and 1083 by population, where 1 is largest. That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
Deciding what's next in Longview, WA
About 38,294 people live in Longview, Washington, 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.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
Reading further on this page's numbers
Every constant behind this page, the 3.16 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs, is documented in the methodology guide. Longview's 19°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.