Should Myrtle Beach switch to a heat pump?
Myrtle Beach sits right on the fence — how long you'll own the house decides this one. 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). Lower bills claw that back: about $250 saved annually, for a payback of roughly 14 years. Whether that's worth it in Myrtle Beach depends on how many years you expect to own the place.
Why Myrtle Beach's climate drives this number
Myrtle Beach has a mild winter by US standards — 1740 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base — and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, at 2244 cooling degree days. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 24.1°F here (record low 19°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 3.28 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. A cold-climate unit is the right call in Myrtle Beach — below 25°F design temperature, a standard heat pump leans hard on electric-resistance backup, which erases most of the savings. Source: NOAA station MYRTLE BEACH INTL AIRPORT, 3.3 miles from Myrtle Beach — the closest one on record.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 1,343 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $526 a year on electricity. That compares with roughly 18 Mcf a year of gas at Myrtle Beach's 16.91 per-Mcf rate — about $776 a year — against a local electricity rate of 16.16¢/kWh. Priced as a standalone purchase rather than against a like-for-like replacement, equipment payback runs about 54 years, for a 15-year net position $252 ahead.
The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with
Not every home in Myrtle Beach 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. Switching saves about $656 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 12.2 years.
Myrtle Beach against the rest of the country
Among 3206 cities, Myrtle Beach's winter puts it at rank 2565 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 1015 for population — 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the mildest third of cities covered, where utility rates carry more of the answer than climate does.
Deciding what's next in Myrtle Beach, SC
About 40,535 people live in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, 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.
Line up a few local HVAC quotes before you decide.
Reading further on this page's numbers
Nothing above is a black box: the methodology guide shows the full arithmetic behind Myrtle Beach's 3.28 seasonal COP and payback figure. Myrtle Beach's 24.1°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.