Simi Valley, CA: the heat pump payback math
In Simi Valley, a heat pump pays for itself within a reasonable window. $1,000 is what Simi Valley 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. Lower bills claw that back: about $197 saved annually, for a payback of roughly 5.1 years. The window here is reasonable, and it's specific to what Simi Valley actually pays for power and gas.
How cold Simi Valley actually gets
1457 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Simi Valley barely has a winter to speak of; the cooling side runs to 1607 cooling degree days, where summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 36°F here (record low 36°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 3.27 for the standard class of unit this climate calls for. Simi Valley's winters don't get cold enough to need the cold-climate premium — a standard unit holds up fine. Source: NOAA station VAN NUYS AIRPORT, 15.3 miles from Simi Valley — the closest one on record.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 1,128 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $820 a year. Simi Valley's gas rate of 22.01 per Mcf, applied to the 15 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts its running cost near $1,018 a year, against 32.83¢ per kWh for electricity. Buy it outright, not incrementally, and payback stretches to 55.7 years; over 15 years the net position sits $1,962 ahead.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Gas isn't universal in Simi Valley — many houses run on electric heat already. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Simi Valley's answer improves. The saving here runs about $1,075 a year, which recovers the extra $5,500 spent going electric in roughly 5.1 years.
How Simi Valley compares nationally
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Simi Valley comes in at 2704 for heating severity — 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset — and 231 by population, where 1 is largest. That's the mildest third of cities covered, where utility rates carry more of the answer than climate does.
What to do with this number in Simi Valley
Simi Valley, California is home to about 125,778 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, Simi Valley is a place worth lining up quotes ahead of a breakdown, not waiting for one.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
Where Simi Valley's figure comes from
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Simi Valley's 3.27 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. The $2,000 federal credit baked into Simi Valley's number is explained, with the before-and-after math, in the tax credit guide.