Should North St. Paul switch to a heat pump?

In North St. Paul, a heat pump would cost more to run each year than what you have now. $3,500 is what North St. Paul would pay extra to go electric rather than replace the furnace and AC with the same again, once the $2,000 federal credit is applied. Running costs here land $184 a year HIGHER than the furnace it replaces, so that premium is never recovered. There's no spin on that: North St. Paul's numbers say wait.

The climate behind North St. Paul's payback figure

North St. Paul has a cold winter that leans hard on heating equipment — 5994 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base — and summers add a moderate cooling load, at 749 cooling degree days. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: -5.1°F here (record low -8°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.58 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. North St. Paul 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. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, ST PAUL DWTWN HOLMAN FD AP, 6.2 miles from North St. Paul.

What it actually costs to run, year to year

Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 5,883 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $1,022 a year. North St. Paul's gas rate of 10.98 per Mcf, applied to the 62 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts its running cost near $838 a year, against 15.67¢ per kWh for electricity. Priced as a standalone purchase rather than against a like-for-like replacement, equipment payback runs past the 15-year equipment life, for a 15-year net position $6,265 behind.

The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with

Plenty of homes in North St. Paul heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and North St. Paul's answer improves. About $1,509 a year comes back this way, enough that the 5.3-year payback clears the $8,000 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.

North St. Paul against the rest of the country

Among 3206 cities, North St. Paul's winter puts it at rank 240 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 2707 for population — 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the coldest third of the dataset, where climate does most of the work behind this figure.

Next step for 12,644 people in North St. Paul

About 12,644 people live in North St. Paul, Minnesota, 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 North St. Paul's figure comes from

Nothing above is a black box: the methodology guide shows the full arithmetic behind North St. Paul's 2.58 seasonal COP and payback figure. North St. Paul's -5.1°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.