Heat Pump Payback in Murray, UT
Heat pump vs. gas furnace in Murray, UT
In Murray, 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 $5,500 more up front here. Murray's residents would see roughly $110 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 50.2 years. Murray's own numbers say this pencils out only in theory, not in practice.
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Why Murray's climate drives this number
4667 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Murray has a real but manageable winter; the cooling side runs to 1804 cooling degree days, where summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating. The 99% winter design temperature here, the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average, is 19°F, and the coldest daily reading in the 2024 station record was 12.2°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 3.16 for the recommended cold-climate unit. Below the 25°F line where a standard machine starts leaning on resistance backup, Murray sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, Salt Lake City International, 9.8 miles from Murray.
The yearly running costs in Murray
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 3,740 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $692 a year. That compares with roughly 49 Mcf a year of gas at Murray's $10.19 per-Mcf rate, about $802 a year with the old AC included, against a local electricity rate of 13.12¢/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 $3,856 behind.
What would change Murray's answer
This result holds unless electricity climbs above 16.8¢/kWh (it is 13.12¢ now) or gas drops below $7.94 per Mcf (now $10.19); past either point, gas becomes the cheaper fuel in Murray. When quotes arrive, compare the heat pump price with a like-for-like furnace and AC replacement: at $110 a year saved, a difference under $770 pays back within 7 years here, and under $1,100 within 10.
Electric resistance heat in Murray, compared
Gas isn't universal in Murray, 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 $1,165 a year, which recovers the extra $10,000 spent going electric in roughly 8.6 years.
How Murray compares nationally
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Murray comes in at 1027 for heating severity, 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset, and 805 by population, where 1 is largest. That's the coldest third of the dataset, where climate does most of the work behind this figure.
Next step if you live in Murray
About 50,817 people live in Murray, Utah, 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.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
Where Murray's figure comes from
Every constant behind this page, the 3.16 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs, is documented in the methodology guide. Murray's 19°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.