Heat pump vs. gas furnace in Redmond, WA
This one's marginal in Redmond: it only clears if you stay long enough. 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). That premium is recovered through $311 of lower running costs every year, landing the payback clock at roughly 11.2 years. Whether that's worth it in Redmond depends on how many years you expect to own the place.
Why Redmond's climate drives this number
4232 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Redmond has a real but manageable winter; the cooling side runs to 365 cooling degree days, where summers add a moderate cooling load. 18°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here — the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day — with a record low of 14°F on file. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 3.13 on the cold-climate unit fit for this climate. Below the 25°F line where a standard machine starts leaning on resistance backup, Redmond sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, BOEING FLD/KING CO INTL AP, 13.4 miles from Redmond.
Redmond's running-cost comparison, in dollars
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 3,424 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $533 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 44 Mcf a year at 17.62 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $844 a year (electricity here runs 14.27¢/kWh). Buy it outright, not incrementally, and payback stretches to 43.4 years; over 15 years the net position sits $1,167 ahead.
The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with
Plenty of homes in Redmond heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Against electric-resistance heat — baseboard or an electric furnace, both 100% efficient but still just resistance — the case for switching gets stronger here. About $1,064 a year comes back this way, enough that the 7.5-year payback clears the $8,000 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.
How Redmond compares nationally
Redmond lands at position 1390 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 451 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
What to do with this number in Redmond
About 82,195 people live in Redmond, Washington, 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.
Where Redmond's figure comes from
Nothing above is a black box: the methodology guide shows the full arithmetic behind Redmond's 3.13 seasonal COP and payback figure. Redmond's 18°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.