Will a heat pump pay off in Roy, UT?
In Roy, the extra upfront cost technically comes back, just not before the equipment wears out. 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. Lower bills claw that back: about $69 saved annually, for a payback of roughly 50.6 years. Roy's own numbers say this pencils out only in theory, not in practice.
Why Roy's climate drives this number
Degree days tell the story here: Roy racks up 4722 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, with 1811 cooling degree days on the cooling side. 9°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here — the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day — with a record low of 6.1°F on file. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 2.92 on the cold-climate unit fit for this climate. A cold-climate unit is the right call in Roy — below 25°F design temperature, a standard heat pump leans hard on electric-resistance backup, which erases most of the savings. Source: NOAA station OGDEN-HINCKLEY AIRPORT, 2.6 miles from Roy — the closest one on record.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 4,095 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $740 a year. Roy's gas rate of 10.19 per Mcf, applied to the 49 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts its running cost near $809 a year, against 13.12¢ per kWh for electricity. Priced as a standalone purchase rather than against a like-for-like replacement, equipment payback runs about 195 years, for a 15-year net position $2,461 behind.
The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with
Plenty of homes in Roy 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. Switching saves about $1,137 a year here — a heat pump moving heat rather than generating it needs far less electricity than resistance coils — so the extra $8,000 spent up front comes back in about 7 years.
Where Roy ranks in this dataset
Among 3206 cities, Roy's winter puts it at rank 1006 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 1068 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.
Next step for 38,719 people in Roy
About 38,719 people live in Roy, Utah, 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 Roy's figure comes from
Nothing above is a black box: the methodology guide shows the full arithmetic behind Roy's 2.92 seasonal COP and payback figure. Roy's 9°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.