Is a heat pump worth it in Palm Beach Gardens?
In Palm Beach Gardens, a heat pump is the cheaper choice, and not by a little. Swap a failed furnace and AC for a heat pump rather than buying like-for-like, and the extra cost here runs $1,000 after a $2,000 federal tax credit. Palm Beach Gardens's residents would see roughly $334 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 3 years. Nothing about that conclusion is generic — it's built entirely from Palm Beach Gardens's own numbers.
Why Palm Beach Gardens's climate drives this number
106 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Palm Beach Gardens barely has a winter to speak of; the cooling side runs to 4633 cooling degree days, where summers are severe enough that cooling can dominate the annual bill. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 48°F here (record low 46.9°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 3.63 for the standard class of unit this climate calls for. A standard ducted system is enough here; Palm Beach Gardens's design temperature doesn't justify the cold-climate premium. Source: NOAA station PALM BEACH INTERNATIONAL AIRP, 12.1 miles from Palm Beach Gardens — the closest one on record.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 74 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $621 a year on electricity. Palm Beach Gardens's gas rate of 25.48 per Mcf, applied to the 1 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts its running cost near $955 a year, against 15.43¢ per kWh for electricity. Buy it outright, not incrementally, and payback stretches to 33 years; over 15 years the net position sits $4,005 ahead.
Electric resistance heat in Palm Beach Gardens, compared
Gas isn't universal in Palm Beach Gardens — many houses run on electric heat already. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Palm Beach Gardens's answer improves. Switching saves about $347 a year here — a heat pump moving heat rather than generating it needs far less electricity than resistance coils — so the extra $5,500 spent up front comes back in about 15.9 years.
How Palm Beach Gardens compares nationally
Among 3206 cities, Palm Beach Gardens's winter puts it at rank 3142 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 622 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.
What to do with this number in Palm Beach Gardens
About 63,284 people live in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, 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, it's worth getting quotes before your current system fails, not after.
Line up a few local HVAC quotes before you decide.
Reading further on this page's numbers
Every constant behind this page — the 3.63 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs — is documented in the methodology guide. See what Palm Beach Gardens's figure looks like without the $2,000 federal credit in the guide to how that credit moves the payback window.