Should Seabrook switch to a heat pump?

Seabrook clears a genuine payback here, inside a reasonable stretch of years. Swap a failed furnace and AC for a heat pump rather than buying like-for-like, and the extra cost here runs $1,000 after a $2,000 federal tax credit. Seabrook's residents would see roughly $300 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 3.3 years. The window here is reasonable, and it's specific to what Seabrook actually pays for power and gas.

Seabrook's weather, in the numbers that matter

Degree days tell the story here: Seabrook racks up 853 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers are severe enough that cooling can dominate the annual bill, with 3321 cooling degree days on the cooling side. 32°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here — the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day — with a record low of 21.4°F on file. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 3.15 on the standard unit fit for this climate. Seabrook's winters don't get cold enough to need the cold-climate premium — a standard unit holds up fine. These numbers come from MORGANS POINT, the closest NOAA station, 5.9 miles out.

What it actually costs to run, year to year

Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 686 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $568 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 9 Mcf a year at 19.42 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $868 a year (electricity here runs 16.15¢/kWh). Looked at as a full purchase rather than an incremental one, payback here is roughly 36.7 years, leaving the 15-year total $3,494 ahead.

Electric resistance heat in Seabrook, compared

Plenty of homes in Seabrook heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Seabrook's answer improves. About $476 a year comes back this way, enough that the 11.6-year payback clears the $5,500 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.

Where Seabrook ranks in this dataset

Among 3206 cities, Seabrook's winter puts it at rank 2949 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 2514 for population — 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the mildest third of cities covered, where utility rates carry more of the answer than climate does.

Deciding what's next in Seabrook, TX

Seabrook, Texas is home to about 13,976 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. Given the math above, Seabrook is a place worth lining up quotes ahead of a breakdown, not waiting for one.

Ask a local HVAC contractor for a quote before committing either way.

More on how this number was built

Every constant behind this page — the 3.15 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs — is documented in the methodology guide. The $2,000 federal credit baked into Seabrook's number is explained, with the before-and-after math, in the tax credit guide.