Will a heat pump pay off in Sidney, OH?
In Sidney, a heat pump would cost more to run each year than what you have now. Against a like-for-like gas furnace and AC swap, going electric costs $3,500 more up front here (already netting out a $2,000 tax credit). The heat pump would cost about $10 more a year to run than the furnace it replaces — a premium with no payback. There's no spin on that: Sidney's numbers say wait.
The climate behind Sidney's payback figure
Sidney has a real but manageable winter — 3895 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base — and summers add a moderate cooling load, at 993 cooling degree days. 3.2°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here — the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day — with a record low of -2.2°F on file. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 2.78 on the cold-climate unit fit for this climate. Sidney 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. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, BELLEFONTAINE REGIONAL AIRPOR, 19.2 miles from Sidney.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 3,548 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $809 a year. That compares with roughly 41 Mcf a year of gas at Sidney's 13.85 per-Mcf rate — about $799 a year — against a local electricity rate of 18.40¢/kWh. 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 $3,649 behind.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Gas isn't universal in Sidney — many houses run on electric heat already. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Sidney's answer improves. About $1,243 a year comes back this way, enough that the 6.4-year payback clears the $8,000 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.
Where Sidney ranks in this dataset
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Sidney comes in at 1585 for heating severity — 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset — and 1890 by population, where 1 is largest. That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
What to do with this number in Sidney
About 20,392 people live in Sidney, Ohio, 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.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Sidney's 2.78 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Sidney's 3.2°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.