Heat pump vs. gas furnace in Pleasant Prairie, WI
In Pleasant Prairie, a heat pump would cost more to run each year than what you have now. $3,500 is what Pleasant Prairie 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. Running costs here land $256 a year HIGHER than the furnace it replaces, so that premium is never recovered. There's no spin on that: Pleasant Prairie's numbers say wait.
The climate behind Pleasant Prairie's payback figure
5018 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Pleasant Prairie has a cold winter that leans hard on heating equipment; the cooling side runs to 920 cooling degree days, where summers add a moderate cooling load. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: -0.9°F here (record low -11°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.68 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. Pleasant Prairie needs the cold-climate class of unit: past a 25°F design temperature a standard heat pump falls back on resistance backup often enough to eat the savings. Source: NOAA station KENOSHA REGIONAL AIRPORT, 5.4 miles from Pleasant Prairie — the closest one on record.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 4,741 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $1,043 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 52 Mcf a year at 10.74 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $786 a year (electricity here runs 18.87¢/kWh). Buy it outright, not incrementally, and payback stretches to beyond the 15-year equipment life; over 15 years the net position sits $7,346 behind.
The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with
Not every home in Pleasant Prairie has gas service. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. The saving here runs about $1,580 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 5.1 years.
Where Pleasant Prairie ranks in this dataset
Pleasant Prairie lands at position 675 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 1799 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). That's the coldest third of the dataset, where climate does most of the work behind this figure.
What to do with this number in Pleasant Prairie
About 21,802 people live in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, 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.
Reading further on this page's numbers
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Pleasant Prairie's 2.68 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. At a -0.9°F design temperature, Pleasant Prairie sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.