Heat pump vs. gas furnace in Roswell, GA
Roswell sits right on the fence — how long you'll own the house decides this one. $3,500 is what Roswell 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. Roswell's residents would see roughly $344 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 10.2 years. It's a genuine toss-up here — Roswell's numbers don't point clearly either way.
Roswell's weather, in the numbers that matter
2569 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Roswell has a mild winter by US standards; the cooling side runs to 1846 cooling degree days, where summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating. 12°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here — the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day — with a record low of 10.9°F on file. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 2.99 on the cold-climate unit fit for this climate. A cold-climate unit is the right call in Roswell — below 25°F design temperature, a standard heat pump leans hard on electric-resistance backup, which erases most of the savings. These numbers come from DEKALB-PEACHTREE AIRPORT, the closest NOAA station, 11.7 miles out.
The month-to-month numbers for Roswell
A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 2,176 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $559 a year on electricity. Roswell's gas rate of 20.42 per Mcf, applied to the 27 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts its running cost near $903 a year, against 14.90¢ per kWh for electricity. Looked at as a full purchase rather than an incremental one, payback here is roughly 39.2 years, leaving the 15-year total $1,662 ahead.
Electric resistance heat in Roswell, compared
Gas isn't universal in Roswell — many houses run on electric heat already. Against electric-resistance heat — baseboard or an electric furnace, both 100% efficient but still just resistance — the case for switching gets stronger here. The saving here runs about $767 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 10.4 years.
Where Roswell ranks in this dataset
Among 3206 cities, Roswell's winter puts it at rank 2103 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 379 for population — 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
Next step for 92,227 people in Roswell
Roswell, Georgia is home to about 92,227 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 Roswell, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
Where Roswell's figure comes from
Nothing above is a black box: the methodology guide shows the full arithmetic behind Roswell's 2.99 seasonal COP and payback figure. Roswell's 12°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.