Should Macedonia switch to a heat pump?

In Macedonia, a heat pump would cost more to run each year than what you have now. 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). Unfortunately the electric bill outweighs the gas bill it replaces by about $50 a year here, so the extra spend stays unrecovered. That's Macedonia's own climate and rates talking, not a hedge or a caveat.

Macedonia's weather, in the numbers that matter

Macedonia has a cold winter that leans hard on heating equipment — 5312 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base — and summers add a moderate cooling load, at 563 cooling degree days. The 99% winter design temperature here — the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average — is 7°F, against a record low of 1.4°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 2.87 for the recommended cold-climate unit. Below the 25°F line where a standard machine starts leaning on resistance backup, Macedonia sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. Source: NOAA station PORTAGE COUNTY AIRPORT, 14.7 miles from Macedonia — the closest one on record.

What it actually costs to run, year to year

Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 4,687 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $951 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 55 Mcf a year at 13.85 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $900 a year (electricity here runs 18.40¢/kWh). Looked at as a full purchase rather than an incremental one, payback here is longer than the 15-year equipment life, leaving the 15-year total $4,253 behind.

The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with

Not every home in Macedonia has gas service. Against electric-resistance heat — baseboard or an electric furnace, both 100% efficient but still just resistance — the case for switching gets stronger here. Switching saves about $1,659 a year here — a heat pump moving heat rather than generating it needs far less electricity than resistance coils — so the extra $8,000 spent up front comes back in about 4.8 years.

Where Macedonia ranks in this dataset

Macedonia lands at position 478 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 2791 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 Macedonia

Macedonia, Ohio is home to about 12,139 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 Macedonia, 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 Macedonia's figure comes from

The methodology guide walks through exactly how Macedonia's 2.87 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. At a 7°F design temperature, Macedonia sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.