Heat pump vs. gas furnace in Plano, TX
This one's marginal in Plano: it only clears if you stay long enough. 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. Plano's residents would see roughly $361 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 9.7 years. It's a genuine toss-up here — Plano's numbers don't point clearly either way.
Plano's weather, in the numbers that matter
Degree days tell the story here: Plano racks up 1620 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers are severe enough that cooling can dominate the annual bill, with 3408 cooling degree days on the cooling side. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 18.9°F here (record low 9.5°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 3.15 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. Below the 25°F line where a standard machine starts leaning on resistance backup, Plano sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. These numbers come from ADDISON AIRPORT, the closest NOAA station, 7.6 miles out.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 1,302 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $680 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 17 Mcf a year at 19.42 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $1,041 a year (electricity here runs 16.15¢/kWh). Priced as a standalone purchase rather than against a like-for-like replacement, equipment payback runs about 37.4 years, for a 15-year net position $1,920 ahead.
The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with
Plenty of homes in Plano heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Plano's answer improves. About $696 a year comes back this way, enough that the 11.5-year payback clears the $8,000 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.
How Plano compares nationally
Plano lands at position 2641 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 74 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). That's the mildest third of cities covered, where utility rates carry more of the answer than climate does.
Next step for 293,286 people in Plano
Plano, Texas is home to about 293,286 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 Plano, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Plano's 3.15 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. At a 18.9°F design temperature, Plano sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.