Should Pocatello switch to a heat pump?

Here in Pocatello, the honest answer is that a heat pump raises your annual running cost. 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. The heat pump would cost about $187 more a year to run than the furnace it replaces — a premium with no payback. That's Pocatello's own climate and rates talking, not a hedge or a caveat.

Pocatello's weather, in the numbers that matter

Degree days tell the story here: Pocatello racks up 6470 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers add a moderate cooling load, with 638 cooling degree days on the cooling side. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 3°F here (record low -14.1°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.77 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. Pocatello 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 POCATELLO REGIONAL AIRPORT, 6.5 miles from Pocatello — the closest one on record.

Pocatello's running-cost comparison, in dollars

Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 5,914 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $809 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 67 Mcf a year at 7.69 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $622 a year (electricity here runs 12.52¢/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 $6,303 behind.

The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with

Plenty of homes in Pocatello heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Pocatello's answer improves. The saving here runs about $1,346 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 5.9 years.

Where Pocatello ranks in this dataset

Among 3206 cities, Pocatello's winter puts it at rank 93 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 700 for population — 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the coldest third of the dataset, where climate does most of the work behind this figure.

Deciding what's next in Pocatello, ID

Pocatello, Idaho is home to about 58,231 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 Pocatello, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.

Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.

Where Pocatello's figure comes from

Every constant behind this page — the 2.77 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs — is documented in the methodology guide. Pocatello's 3°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.