Heat Pump Payback in Richmond, IN
Should Richmond switch to a heat pump?
In Richmond, 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 $5,500 more up front here. The heat pump would cost about $91 more a year to run than the furnace it replaces, a premium with no payback. There's no spin on that: Richmond's numbers say wait.
Checking a different city
This runs the same numbers for 3206 US cities, not just Richmond. Look one up here.
The climate behind Richmond's payback figure
Richmond has a real but manageable winter, 4586 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base, and summers add a moderate cooling load, at 951 cooling degree days. The 99% winter design temperature here, the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average, is 3.2°F, and the coldest daily reading in the 2024 station record was -4°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 2.78 for the recommended cold-climate unit. Below the 25°F line where a standard machine starts leaning on resistance backup, Richmond sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, Darke County Airport, 32 miles from Richmond.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 4,177 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $849 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 48 Mcf a year at $11.49 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $759 a year including the old AC (electricity here runs 17.03¢/kWh). With running costs higher every year, there is no payback at any purchase price; over 15 years, against a like-for-like replacement, a household here would end $6,862 behind.
The break-even point in Richmond
The heat pump would become the cheaper option in Richmond if electricity fell to 14.6¢/kWh (from 17.03¢) or gas rose above $13.39 per Mcf (from $11.49). At today's prices a cheaper quote cannot rescue the gas comparison in Richmond, since there is no yearly saving to recover it from.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Not every home in Richmond has gas service. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Richmond's answer improves. The saving here runs about $1,338 a year, which recovers the extra $10,000 spent going electric in roughly 7.5 years.
Where Richmond ranks in this dataset
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Richmond comes in at 1108 for heating severity, 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset, and 1154 by population, where 1 is largest. That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
Next step if you live in Richmond
About 35,561 people live in Richmond, Indiana, 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.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Richmond's 2.78 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Richmond's 3.2°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.