Novi, MI: the heat pump payback math

Here in Novi, 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 $360 a year HIGHER than the furnace it replaces, so that premium is never recovered. That's Novi's own climate and rates talking, not a hedge or a caveat.

How cold Novi actually gets

Degree days tell the story here: Novi racks up 5409 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers add a moderate cooling load, with 739 cooling degree days on the cooling side. The 99% winter design temperature here — the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average — is 1°F, against a record low of -5.8°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 2.72 for the recommended cold-climate unit. A cold-climate unit is the right call in Novi — below 25°F design temperature, a standard heat pump leans hard on electric-resistance backup, which erases most of the savings. Source: NOAA station OAKLAND CO. INTNL AIRPORT, 13.4 miles from Novi — the closest one on record.

What it actually costs to run, year to year

Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 5,035 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $1,174 a year. That compares with roughly 56 Mcf a year of gas at Novi's 10.92 per-Mcf rate — about $814 a year — against a local electricity rate of 20.72¢/kWh. 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 $8,904 behind.

Electric resistance heat in Novi, compared

Not every home in Novi 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. The saving here runs about $1,862 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 4.3 years.

How Novi compares nationally

Novi lands at position 422 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 575 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.

What to do with this number in Novi

Novi, Michigan is home to about 67,675 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 Novi, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.

Ask a local HVAC contractor for a quote before committing either way.

More on how this number was built

The methodology guide walks through exactly how Novi's 2.72 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. At a 1°F design temperature, Novi sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.