Is a heat pump worth it in Los Lunas?
In Los Lunas, the extra upfront cost technically comes back, just not before the equipment wears out. 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). Lower bills claw that back: about $44 saved annually, for a payback of roughly 79.1 years. Los Lunas's own numbers say this pencils out only in theory, not in practice.
The climate behind Los Lunas's payback figure
Degree days tell the story here: Los Lunas racks up 3562 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, with 1705 cooling degree days on the cooling side. The 99% winter design temperature here — the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average — is 15.8°F, against a record low of 14°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 3.08 for the recommended cold-climate unit. Below the 25°F line where a standard machine starts leaning on resistance backup, Los Lunas sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. Source: NOAA station BELEN RGNL ARPT, 11 miles from Los Lunas — the closest one on record.
Los Lunas's running-cost comparison, in dollars
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 2,928 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $646 a year. That compares with roughly 37 Mcf a year of gas at Los Lunas's 9.83 per-Mcf rate — about $691 a year — against a local electricity rate of 14.75¢/kWh. Buy it outright, not incrementally, and payback stretches to 305.2 years; over 15 years the net position sits $2,837 behind.
Electric resistance heat in Los Lunas, compared
Plenty of homes in Los Lunas heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Los Lunas's answer improves. About $1,010 a year comes back this way, enough that the 7.9-year payback clears the $8,000 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.
How Los Lunas compares nationally
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Los Lunas comes in at 1753 for heating severity — 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset — and 1934 by population, where 1 is largest. That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
What to do with this number in Los Lunas
About 19,907 people live in Los Lunas, New Mexico, 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.
Where Los Lunas's figure comes from
Every constant behind this page — the 3.08 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs — is documented in the methodology guide. Los Lunas's 15.8°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.