Heat Pump Payback in Marion, IL
Will a heat pump pay off in Marion, IL?
Here in Marion, the honest answer is that a heat pump raises your annual running cost. $5,500 is what Marion would pay extra to go electric rather than replace the furnace and AC with the same again. Unfortunately the electric bill outweighs the gas bill it replaces by about $80 a year here, so the extra spend stays unrecovered. There's no spin on that: Marion's numbers say wait.
Not the city you meant?
This runs the same numbers for 3206 US cities, not just Marion. Look one up here.
The climate behind Marion's payback figure
Degree days tell the story here: Marion racks up 3600 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, with 1463 cooling degree days on the cooling side. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 3.2°F here (coldest 2024 reading 1.2°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.78 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. Marion 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 Williamson County Regional Apt, 3.4 miles from Marion, the closest one on record.
Marion's running-cost comparison, in dollars
A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 3,279 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $863 a year on electricity. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 37 Mcf a year at $11.25 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $783 a year including the old AC (electricity here runs 19.06¢/kWh). With running costs higher every year, there is no payback at any purchase price; over 15 years, against a like-for-like replacement, a household here would end $6,693 behind.
How sensitive Marion's result is to prices
The heat pump would become the cheaper option in Marion if electricity fell to 16.0¢/kWh (from 19.06¢) or gas rose above $13.37 per Mcf (from $11.25). At today's prices a cheaper quote cannot rescue the gas comparison in Marion, since there is no yearly saving to recover it from.
Electric resistance heat in Marion, compared
Not every home in Marion 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. About $1,236 a year comes back this way, enough that the 8.1-year payback clears the $10,000 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.
How Marion compares nationally
Among 3206 cities, Marion's winter puts it at rank 1741 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 2192 for population, 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
Next step if you live in Marion
About 17,021 people live in Marion, Illinois, 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.
Where Marion's figure comes from
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Marion's 2.78 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Marion's 3.2°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.