Is a heat pump worth it in Paris?

Paris 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. Paris's residents would see roughly $263 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 13.3 years. Whether that's worth it in Paris depends on how many years you expect to own the place.

The climate behind Paris's payback figure

Paris has a mild winter by US standards — 2140 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base — and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, at 1713 cooling degree days. 12°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here — the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day — with a record low of 8.1°F on file. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 2.99 on the cold-climate unit fit for this climate. Below the 25°F line where a standard machine starts leaning on resistance backup, Paris sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. These numbers come from COX FIELD AIRPORT, the closest NOAA station, 6.1 miles out.

What it actually costs to run, year to year

Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 1,812 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $529 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 22 Mcf a year at 19.42 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $791 a year (electricity here runs 16.15¢/kWh). Buy it outright, not incrementally, and payback stretches to 51.4 years; over 15 years the net position sits $442 ahead.

Electric resistance heat in Paris, compared

Gas isn't universal in Paris — many houses run on electric heat already. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Paris's answer improves. Switching saves about $705 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 11.3 years.

Where Paris ranks in this dataset

Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Paris comes in at 2366 for heating severity — 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset — and 1605 by population, where 1 is largest. 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 Paris

About 25,037 people live in Paris, 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.

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

Where Paris's figure comes from

Nothing above is a black box: the methodology guide shows the full arithmetic behind Paris's 2.99 seasonal COP and payback figure. Paris's 12°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.