Heat Pump Payback in McKinney, TX
Will a heat pump pay off in McKinney, TX?
McKinney technically pencils out, but only past the point the equipment would need replacing anyway. Swap a failed furnace and AC for a heat pump rather than buying like-for-like, and the extra cost here runs $5,500. Lower bills claw that back: about $341 saved annually, for a payback of roughly 16.2 years. That's a technicality, not a recommendation, for anyone actually living in McKinney.
Compare against another city
This runs the same numbers for 3206 US cities, not just McKinney. Look one up here.
McKinney's weather, in the numbers that matter
Degree days tell the story here: McKinney racks up 1985 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers are severe enough that cooling can dominate the annual bill, with 2940 cooling degree days on the cooling side. 12°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here, the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day, with a low of 9°F in the 2024 station record. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 2.99 on the cold-climate unit fit for this climate. Mild on average, but the occasional cold snap is what sizes the equipment: at a 12°F design temperature McKinney falls just under the 25°F line where a standard heat pump starts leaning on resistance backup, so the model prices a cold-climate unit to be safe. Source: NOAA station McKinney Municipal Airport, 4.3 miles from McKinney, the closest one on record.
McKinney's running-cost comparison, in dollars
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 1,681 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $676 a year. McKinney's gas rate of $19.42 per Mcf, applied to the 21 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts the current furnace-and-AC running cost near $1,017 a year, against 16.15¢ per kWh for electricity. If the current system still worked and you replaced it anyway, the full cost would take longer than the 15-year equipment life to earn back; against buying a new furnace and AC regardless, the 15-year total lands $392 behind.
The break-even point in McKinney
Gas would only overtake the heat pump in McKinney if electricity rose past 106.3¢/kWh from 16.15¢, or gas fell under $2.95 per Mcf from $19.42. A useful quote test for McKinney: the heat pump is worth it within a decade if it costs less than $3,410 more than replacing the furnace and AC, and within 7 years if the gap is under $2,387.
The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with
Not every home in McKinney 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. The saving here runs about $751 a year, which recovers the extra $10,000 spent going electric in roughly 13.3 years.
How McKinney compares nationally
McKinney lands at position 2428 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 106 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). That's the mildest third of cities covered, where utility rates carry more of the answer than climate does.
Next step if you live in McKinney
McKinney, Texas is home to about 227,526 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 McKinney, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
More on how this number was built
Nothing above is a black box: the methodology guide shows the full arithmetic behind McKinney's 2.99 seasonal COP and payback figure. At a 12°F design temperature, McKinney sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.