Heat Pump Payback in Roswell, GA
Heat pump vs. gas furnace in Roswell, GA
Roswell technically pencils out, but only past the point the equipment would need replacing anyway. $5,500 is what Roswell would pay extra to go electric rather than replace the furnace and AC with the same again. Roswell's residents would see roughly $344 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 16 years. That's a technicality, not a recommendation, for anyone actually living in Roswell.
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Roswell is one of 3206 cities covered here, each run through the same model. Search another below.
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 low of 10.9°F in the 2024 station record. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 2.99 on the cold-climate unit fit for this climate. Mild on average, but the occasional cold snap is what sizes the equipment: at a 12°F design temperature Roswell falls just under the 25°F line where a standard heat pump starts leaning on resistance backup, so the model prices a cold-climate unit to be safe. These numbers come from Dekalb-Peachtree Airport, the closest NOAA station, 11.7 miles out.
The yearly running costs in 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 the current furnace-and-AC running cost near $903 a year, against 14.90¢ per kWh for electricity. If the current system still worked and you replaced it anyway, the full cost would take longer than the 15-year equipment life to earn back; against buying a new furnace and AC regardless, the 15-year total lands $338 behind.
The break-even point in Roswell
Gas would only overtake the heat pump in Roswell if electricity rose past 40.3¢/kWh from 14.90¢, or gas fell under $7.56 per Mcf from $20.42. A useful quote test for Roswell: the heat pump is worth it within a decade if it costs less than $3,440 more than replacing the furnace and AC, and within 7 years if the gap is under $2,408.
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 $10,000 spent going electric in roughly 13 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 if you live 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.