Should Pembroke Pines switch to a heat pump?
In Pembroke Pines, a heat pump is the cheaper choice, and not by a little. $1,000 is what Pembroke Pines would pay extra to go electric rather than replace the furnace and AC with the same again, once the $2,000 federal credit is applied. Lower bills claw that back: about $359 saved annually, for a payback of roughly 2.8 years. Nothing about that conclusion is generic — it's built entirely from Pembroke Pines's own numbers.
Why Pembroke Pines's climate drives this number
Pembroke Pines barely has a winter to speak of — 54 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base — and summers are severe enough that cooling can dominate the annual bill, at 5123 cooling degree days. 50°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here — the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day — with a record low of 48.9°F on file. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 3.69 on the standard unit fit for this climate. A standard ducted system is enough here; Pembroke Pines's design temperature doesn't justify the cold-climate premium. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, NORTH PERRY AIRPORT, 6.3 miles from Pembroke Pines.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 37 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $680 a year on electricity. That compares with roughly 1 Mcf a year of gas at Pembroke Pines's 25.48 per-Mcf rate — about $1,039 a year — against a local electricity rate of 15.43¢/kWh. Priced as a standalone purchase rather than against a like-for-like replacement, equipment payback runs about 30.6 years, for a 15-year net position $4,386 ahead.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Plenty of homes in Pembroke Pines heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. The saving here runs about $366 a year, which recovers the extra $5,500 spent going electric in roughly 15 years.
Where Pembroke Pines ranks in this dataset
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Pembroke Pines comes in at 3179 for heating severity — 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset — and 149 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.
Deciding what's next in Pembroke Pines, FL
About 179,326 people live in Pembroke Pines, 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.
Where Pembroke Pines's figure comes from
Nothing above is a black box: the methodology guide shows the full arithmetic behind Pembroke Pines's 3.69 seasonal COP and payback figure. See what Pembroke Pines's figure looks like without the $2,000 federal credit in the guide to how that credit moves the payback window.