Should Madisonville switch to a heat pump?

In Madisonville, the extra upfront cost technically comes back, just not before the equipment wears out. 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. Madisonville's residents would see roughly $156 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 22.4 years. Madisonville's own numbers say this pencils out only in theory, not in practice.

The climate behind Madisonville's payback figure

Madisonville has a real but manageable winter — 3325 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base — and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, at 1478 cooling degree days. 4.6°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here — the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day — with a record low of 0.9°F on file. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 2.81 on the cold-climate unit fit for this climate. Below the 25°F line where a standard machine starts leaning on resistance backup, Madisonville sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. Source: NOAA station MADISONVILLE MUNICIPAL AIRPOR, 5.7 miles from Madisonville — the closest one on record.

What it actually costs to run, year to year

A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 2,996 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $612 a year on electricity. Madisonville's gas rate of 14.23 per Mcf, applied to the 35 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts its running cost near $768 a year, against 14.39¢ per kWh for electricity. Looked at as a full purchase rather than an incremental one, payback here is roughly 86.6 years, leaving the 15-year total $1,161 behind.

The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with

Plenty of homes in Madisonville heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Against electric-resistance heat — baseboard or an electric furnace, both 100% efficient but still just resistance — the case for switching gets stronger here. About $875 a year comes back this way, enough that the 9.1-year payback clears the $8,000 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.

Madisonville against the rest of the country

Among 3206 cities, Madisonville's winter puts it at rank 1821 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 1970 for population — 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.

Deciding what's next in Madisonville, KY

About 19,502 people live in Madisonville, Kentucky, 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.

Ask a local HVAC contractor for a quote before committing either way.

Reading further on this page's numbers

The methodology guide walks through exactly how Madisonville's 2.81 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. At a 4.6°F design temperature, Madisonville sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.