Heat pump vs. gas furnace in Marshall, MO
The payback math works in Marshall on paper, past the equipment's own working life. 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. That premium is recovered through $181 of lower running costs every year, landing the payback clock at roughly 19.3 years. That's a technicality, not a recommendation, for anyone actually living in Marshall.
Marshall's weather, in the numbers that matter
Marshall has a real but manageable winter — 4236 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base — and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, at 1053 cooling degree days. -5.8°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here — the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day — with a record low of -11.2°F on file. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 2.56 on the cold-climate unit fit for this climate. Marshall 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. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, MARSHALL MEM MUNI, 1.3 miles from Marshall.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 4,190 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $653 a year on electricity. That compares with roughly 44 Mcf a year of gas at Marshall's 14.94 per-Mcf rate — about $834 a year — against a local electricity rate of 12.83¢/kWh. Priced as a standalone purchase rather than against a like-for-like replacement, equipment payback runs about 74.4 years, for a 15-year net position $778 behind.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Plenty of homes in Marshall 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. The saving here runs about $898 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 8.9 years.
Where Marshall ranks in this dataset
Marshall lands at position 1383 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 2547 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
What to do with this number in Marshall
Marshall, Missouri is home to about 13,791 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 Marshall, 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 Marshall's figure comes from
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Marshall's 2.56 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Marshall's -5.8°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.