Is a heat pump worth it in Pampa?
Pampa sits right on the fence — how long you'll own the house decides this one. Swap a failed furnace and AC for a heat pump rather than buying like-for-like, and the extra cost here runs $3,500 after a $2,000 federal tax credit. Lower bills claw that back: about $340 saved annually, for a payback of roughly 10.3 years. Whether that's worth it in Pampa depends on how many years you expect to own the place.
Why Pampa's climate drives this number
3258 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Pampa has a real but manageable winter; the cooling side runs to 2051 cooling degree days, where summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 6.6°F here (record low 0.3°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.86 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. Below the 25°F line where a standard machine starts leaning on resistance backup, Pampa sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, PERRY LEFORS FIELD AIRPORT, 4.8 miles from Pampa.
The month-to-month numbers for Pampa
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 2,885 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $748 a year. Pampa's gas rate of 19.42 per Mcf, applied to the 34 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts its running cost near $1,088 a year, against 16.15¢ per kWh for electricity. Looked at as a full purchase rather than an incremental one, payback here is roughly 39.7 years, leaving the 15-year total $1,599 ahead.
The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with
Not every home in Pampa has gas service. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. Switching saves about $1,013 a year here — a heat pump moving heat rather than generating it needs far less electricity than resistance coils — so the extra $8,000 spent up front comes back in about 7.9 years.
Where Pampa ranks in this dataset
Among 3206 cities, Pampa's winter puts it at rank 1831 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 2248 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 Pampa
About 16,487 people live in Pampa, Texas, 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.
Line up a few local HVAC quotes before you decide.
More on how this number was built
Every constant behind this page — the 2.86 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs — is documented in the methodology guide. Pampa's 6.6°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.