Should Marshfield switch to a heat pump?

In Marshfield, 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). Running costs here land $473 a year HIGHER than the furnace it replaces, so that premium is never recovered. There's no spin on that: Marshfield's numbers say wait.

The climate behind Marshfield's payback figure

Degree days tell the story here: Marshfield racks up 6593 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers add a moderate cooling load, with 415 cooling degree days on the cooling side. -7.1°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here — the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day — with a record low of -11°F on file. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 2.53 on the cold-climate unit fit for this climate. Below the 25°F line where a standard machine starts leaning on resistance backup, Marshfield sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, MARSHFIELD MUNICIPAL ARPT, 1.9 miles from Marshfield.

What it actually costs to run, year to year

Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 6,599 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $1,312 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 69 Mcf a year at 10.74 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $839 a year (electricity here runs 18.87¢/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 $10,595 behind.

The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with

Not every home in Marshfield has gas service. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Marshfield's answer improves. About $1,940 a year comes back this way, enough that the 4.1-year payback clears the $8,000 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.

Marshfield against the rest of the country

Marshfield lands at position 82 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 2015 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.

Deciding what's next in Marshfield, WI

About 18,973 people live in Marshfield, Wisconsin, 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 Marshfield's 2.53 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Marshfield's -7.1°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.