Moore, OK: the heat pump payback math
In Moore, 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 $3,500 more up front here (already netting out a $2,000 tax credit). Moore's residents would see roughly $225 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 15.5 years. That's a technicality, not a recommendation, for anyone actually living in Moore.
How cold Moore actually gets
Moore has a mild winter by US standards — 2787 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base — and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, at 2356 cooling degree days. The 99% winter design temperature here — the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average — is 8.6°F, against a record low of 0.9°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 2.91 for the recommended cold-climate unit. A cold-climate unit is the right call in Moore — below 25°F design temperature, a standard heat pump leans hard on electric-resistance backup, which erases most of the savings. These numbers come from UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA WESTHE, the closest NOAA station, 5.4 miles out.
The month-to-month numbers for Moore
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 2,425 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $581 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 29 Mcf a year at 13.99 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $806 a year (electricity here runs 13.10¢/kWh). Priced as a standalone purchase rather than against a like-for-like replacement, equipment payback runs about 59.9 years, for a 15-year net position $122 behind.
The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with
Not every home in Moore has gas service. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Moore's answer improves. Switching saves about $744 a year here — a heat pump moving heat rather than generating it needs far less electricity than resistance coils — so the extra $8,000 spent up front comes back in about 10.8 years.
Moore against the rest of the country
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Moore comes in at 2010 for heating severity — 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset — and 617 by population, where 1 is largest. That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
What to do with this number in Moore
Moore, Oklahoma is home to about 63,845 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 Moore, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Ask a local HVAC contractor for a quote before committing either way.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Moore's 2.91 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Moore's 8.6°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.