Should New Brunswick switch to a heat pump?
Here in New Brunswick, 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). The heat pump would cost about $140 more a year to run than the furnace it replaces — a premium with no payback. There's no spin on that: New Brunswick's numbers say wait.
Why New Brunswick's climate drives this number
New Brunswick has a real but manageable winter — 4648 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base — and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, at 1012 cooling degree days. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 10°F here (record low 1°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.94 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. New Brunswick needs the cold-climate class of unit: past a 25°F design temperature a standard heat pump falls back on resistance backup often enough to eat the savings. These numbers come from SOMERSET AIRPORT, the closest NOAA station, 15.1 miles out.
New Brunswick's running-cost comparison, in dollars
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 4,003 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $1,133 a year. New Brunswick's gas rate of 14.21 per Mcf, applied to the 48 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts its running cost near $993 a year, against 23.28¢ per kWh for electricity. 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 $5,594 behind.
Electric resistance heat in New Brunswick, compared
Plenty of homes in New Brunswick heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. About $1,912 a year comes back this way, enough that the 4.2-year payback clears the $8,000 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.
How New Brunswick compares nationally
New Brunswick lands at position 1045 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 713 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.
Next step for 57,487 people in New Brunswick
About 57,487 people live in New Brunswick, New Jersey, 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.
More on how this number was built
Every constant behind this page — the 2.94 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs — is documented in the methodology guide. New Brunswick's 10°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.