Should Mount Pleasant switch to a heat pump?

Here in Mount Pleasant, the honest answer is that a heat pump raises your annual running cost. 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 $278 a year HIGHER than the furnace it replaces, so that premium is never recovered. That's Mount Pleasant's own climate and rates talking, not a hedge or a caveat.

How cold Mount Pleasant actually gets

Degree days tell the story here: Mount Pleasant racks up 5287 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers add a moderate cooling load, with 796 cooling degree days on the cooling side. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 0°F here (record low -9°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.7 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. Below the 25°F line where a standard machine starts leaning on resistance backup, Mount Pleasant sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, JOHN H BATTEN AIRPORT, 5.1 miles from Mount Pleasant.

The month-to-month numbers for Mount Pleasant

Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 4,958 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $1,064 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 55 Mcf a year at 10.74 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $786 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 $7,665 behind.

The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with

Gas isn't universal in Mount Pleasant — many houses run on electric heat already. 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 $1,657 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 4.8 years.

Mount Pleasant against the rest of the country

Mount Pleasant lands at position 501 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 1418 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 Mount Pleasant, WI

Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin is home to about 28,184 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 Mount Pleasant, 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 Mount Pleasant's figure comes from

Every constant behind this page — the 2.7 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs — is documented in the methodology guide. At a 0°F design temperature, Mount Pleasant sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.