Paducah, KY: the heat pump payback math
Paducah technically pencils out, but only past the point the equipment would need replacing anyway. $3,500 is what Paducah 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. Paducah's residents would see roughly $169 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 20.7 years. That's a technicality, not a recommendation, for anyone actually living in Paducah.
Paducah's weather, in the numbers that matter
3070 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Paducah has a real but manageable winter; the cooling side runs to 1798 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 3.9°F, against a record low of 1.9°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 2.79 for the recommended cold-climate unit. Paducah 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 BARKLEY REGIONAL AIRPORT, the closest NOAA station, 7.2 miles out.
The month-to-month numbers for Paducah
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 2,786 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $622 a year. Paducah's gas rate of 14.23 per Mcf, applied to the 32 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts its running cost near $790 a year, against 14.39¢ per kWh for electricity. Priced as a standalone purchase rather than against a like-for-like replacement, equipment payback runs about 80 years, for a 15-year net position $969 behind.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Gas isn't universal in Paducah — many houses run on electric heat already. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. About $832 a year comes back this way, enough that the 9.6-year payback clears the $8,000 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.
Paducah against the rest of the country
Among 3206 cities, Paducah's winter puts it at rank 1891 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 1492 for population — 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
What to do with this number in Paducah
Paducah, Kentucky is home to about 26,712 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 Paducah, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Line up a few local HVAC quotes before you decide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Paducah's 2.79 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. At a 3.9°F design temperature, Paducah sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.