Heat Pump Payback in Paris, TX
Is a heat pump worth it in Paris?
Paris technically pencils out, but only past the point the equipment would need replacing anyway. Swap a failed furnace and AC for a heat pump rather than buying like-for-like, and the extra cost here runs $5,500. Paris's residents would see roughly $263 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 20.9 years. Paris's own numbers say this pencils out only in theory, not in practice.
Compare against another city
Landed on Paris by mistake, or want to compare it against somewhere else? Search the other 3206 cities below.
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 low of 8.1°F in the 2024 station record. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 2.99 on the cold-climate unit fit for this climate. The average winter here is gentle, but sizing follows the cold snaps, and 12°F is below the 25°F point where a standard unit leans on resistance backup, so a cold-climate unit is what gets priced for Paris. 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 including the old AC (electricity here runs 16.15¢/kWh). Buying outright rather than at replacement time stretches payback to longer than the 15-year equipment life. Over 15 years, compared with a like-for-like replacement, the heat pump leaves you $1,558 behind.
The break-even point in Paris
This result holds unless electricity climbs above 41.1¢/kWh (it is 16.15¢ now) or gas drops below $7.63 per Mcf (now $19.42); past either point, gas becomes the cheaper fuel in Paris. When quotes arrive, compare the heat pump price with a like-for-like furnace and AC replacement: at $263 a year saved, a difference under $1,841 pays back within 7 years here, and under $2,630 within 10.
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 $10,000 spent up front comes back in about 14.2 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.