Heat pump vs. gas furnace in Peoria, IL
In Peoria, a heat pump would cost more to run each year than what you have now. Against a like-for-like gas furnace and AC swap, going electric costs $3,500 more up front here (already netting out a $2,000 tax credit). Unfortunately the electric bill outweighs the gas bill it replaces by about $209 a year here, so the extra spend stays unrecovered. There's no spin on that: Peoria's numbers say wait.
Why Peoria's climate drives this number
Degree days tell the story here: Peoria racks up 4554 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, with 1292 cooling degree days on the cooling side. -5.1°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here — the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day — with a record low of -13°F on file. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 2.58 on the cold-climate unit fit for this climate. A cold-climate unit is the right call in Peoria — below 25°F design temperature, a standard heat pump leans hard on electric-resistance backup, which erases most of the savings. These numbers come from GREATER PEORIA REGIONAL AIRPO, the closest NOAA station, 6.8 miles out.
The month-to-month numbers for Peoria
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 4,470 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $1,062 a year. That compares with roughly 47 Mcf a year of gas at Peoria's 11.25 per-Mcf rate — about $853 a year — against a local electricity rate of 19.06¢/kWh. Priced as a standalone purchase rather than against a like-for-like replacement, equipment payback runs past the 15-year equipment life, for a 15-year net position $6,637 behind.
The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with
Plenty of homes in Peoria 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. About $1,455 a year comes back this way, enough that the 5.5-year payback clears the $8,000 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.
Where Peoria ranks in this dataset
Among 3206 cities, Peoria's winter puts it at rank 1127 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 288 for population — 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
Deciding what's next in Peoria, IL
About 111,696 people live in Peoria, Illinois, 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.
Where Peoria's figure comes from
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Peoria's 2.58 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Peoria's -5.1°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.