Heat Pump Payback in Maywood, CA
Should Maywood switch to a heat pump?
In Maywood, the extra upfront cost technically comes back, just not before the equipment wears out. Against a like-for-like gas furnace and AC swap, going electric costs $3,000 more up front here. Lower bills claw that back: about $81 saved annually, for a payback of roughly 37.1 years. That's a technicality, not a recommendation, for anyone actually living in Maywood.
Not the city you meant?
This runs the same numbers for 3206 US cities, not just Maywood. Look one up here.
Maywood's weather, in the numbers that matter
1268 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Maywood barely has a winter to speak of; the cooling side runs to 622 cooling degree days, where summers add a moderate cooling load. The 99% winter design temperature here, the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average, is 44.1°F, and the coldest daily reading in the 2024 station record was 44.1°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 3.51 for the recommended standard unit. Maywood's winters don't get cold enough to need the cold-climate premium, a standard unit holds up fine. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, Nrthorp Fld/Hathrn Municipal AP, 9.5 miles from Maywood.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 915 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $474 a year. That compares with roughly 13 Mcf a year of gas at Maywood's $22.01 per-Mcf rate, about $555 a year with the old AC included, against a local electricity rate of 32.83¢/kWh. Buying outright rather than at replacement time stretches payback to longer than the 15-year equipment life. Over 15 years, compared with a like-for-like replacement, the heat pump leaves you $1,787 behind.
The break-even point in Maywood
Gas would only overtake the heat pump in Maywood if electricity rose past 45.5¢/kWh from 32.83¢, or gas fell under $15.88 per Mcf from $22.01. A useful quote test for Maywood: the heat pump is worth it within a decade if it costs less than $810 more than replacing the furnace and AC, and within 7 years if the gap is under $567.
The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with
Not every home in Maywood has gas service. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. The saving here runs about $844 a year, which recovers the extra $7,500 spent going electric in roughly 8.9 years.
How Maywood compares nationally
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Maywood comes in at 2778 for heating severity, 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset, and 1667 by population, where 1 is largest. That's the mildest third of cities covered, where utility rates carry more of the answer than climate does.
Deciding what's next in Maywood, CA
Maywood, California is home to about 23,838 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 Maywood, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
Where Maywood's figure comes from
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Maywood's 3.51 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Maywood technically clears a payback on paper, just past the equipment's own working life, the no-payback guide explains why that distinction matters.