Rutland, VT: the heat pump payback math
In Rutland, a heat pump would cost more to run each year than what you have now. $3,500 is what Rutland 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. Unfortunately the electric bill outweighs the gas bill it replaces by about $400 a year here, so the extra spend stays unrecovered. That's Rutland's own climate and rates talking, not a hedge or a caveat.
Rutland's weather, in the numbers that matter
12663 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Rutland has one of the harshest winters in the country; the cooling side runs to 409 cooling degree days, where summers add a moderate cooling load. The 99% winter design temperature here — the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average — is 0.9°F, against a record low of -6°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 2.72 for the recommended cold-climate unit. Rutland needs the cold-climate class of unit: past a 25°F design temperature a standard heat pump falls back on resistance backup often enough to eat the savings. Source: NOAA station MIDDLEBURY STATE AIRPORT, 26.6 miles from Rutland — the closest one on record.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 11,788 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $2,901 a year. Rutland's gas rate of 18.00 per Mcf, applied to the 132 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts its running cost near $2,501 a year, against 23.90¢ per kWh for electricity. Looked at as a full purchase rather than an incremental one, payback here is longer than the 15-year equipment life, leaving the 15-year total $9,503 behind.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Gas isn't universal in Rutland — many houses run on electric heat already. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. The saving here runs about $4,889 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 1.6 years.
How Rutland compares nationally
Among 3206 cities, Rutland's winter puts it at rank 2 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 2340 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.
What to do with this number in Rutland
Rutland, Vermont is home to about 15,565 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 Rutland, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
Where Rutland's figure comes from
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Rutland's 2.72 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. At a 0.9°F design temperature, Rutland sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.