Heat Pump Payback in Pasco, WA
Should Pasco switch to a heat pump?
Pasco 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. Pasco's residents would see roughly $308 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 17.8 years. That's a technicality, not a recommendation, for anyone actually living in Pasco.
Checking a different city
Pasco is one of 3206 cities covered here, each run through the same model. Search another below.
How cold Pasco actually gets
Pasco has a real but manageable winter, 4567 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base, and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, at 1113 cooling degree days. The 99% winter design temperature here, the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average, is 1.9°F, and the coldest daily reading in the 2024 station record was 1.9°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 2.75 for the recommended cold-climate unit. A cold-climate unit is the right call in Pasco, below 25°F design temperature, a standard heat pump leans hard on electric-resistance backup, which erases most of the savings. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, Tri-Cities Airport, 0.2 miles from Pasco.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 4,205 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $735 a year. That compares with roughly 48 Mcf a year of gas at Pasco's $17.62 per-Mcf rate, about $1,044 a year with the old AC included, against a local electricity rate of 14.27¢/kWh. Priced as a standalone purchase, with a working furnace ripped out early, payback would take longer than the 15-year equipment life. Measured against the like-for-like replacement instead, a household here ends 15 years $874 behind.
The break-even point in Pasco
Gas would only overtake the heat pump in Pasco if electricity rose past 22.6¢/kWh from 14.27¢, or gas fell under $11.14 per Mcf from $17.62. A useful quote test for Pasco: the heat pump is worth it within a decade if it costs less than $3,080 more than replacing the furnace and AC, and within 7 years if the gap is under $2,156.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Not every home in Pasco has gas service. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. About $1,121 a year comes back this way, enough that the 8.9-year payback clears the $10,000 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.
How Pasco compares nationally
Among 3206 cities, Pasco's winter puts it at rank 1120 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 454 for population, 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
Next step if you live in Pasco
Pasco, Washington is home to about 81,724 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 Pasco, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
Where Pasco's figure comes from
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Pasco's 2.75 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. At a 1.9°F design temperature, Pasco sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.