Heat Pump Payback in Smithfield, UT
Heat pump vs. gas furnace in Smithfield, UT
Smithfield is a place where a heat pump genuinely costs more to operate than the alternative. Against a like-for-like gas furnace and AC swap, going electric costs $5,500 more up front here. The heat pump would cost about $49 more a year to run than the furnace it replaces, a premium with no payback. That's Smithfield's own climate and rates talking, not a hedge or a caveat.
Compare against another city
This runs the same numbers for 3206 US cities, not just Smithfield. Look one up here.
Smithfield's weather, in the numbers that matter
6351 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Smithfield has a cold winter that leans hard on heating equipment; the cooling side runs to 765 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 1.9°F, and the coldest daily reading in the 2024 station record was -15°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 2.75 for the recommended cold-climate unit. A cold-climate unit is the right call in Smithfield, below 25°F design temperature, a standard heat pump leans hard on electric-resistance backup, which erases most of the savings. These numbers come from Logan-Cache Airport, the closest NOAA station, 3.6 miles out.
The yearly running costs in Smithfield
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 5,848 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $853 a year. That compares with roughly 66 Mcf a year of gas at Smithfield's $10.19 per-Mcf rate, about $804 a year with the old AC included, against a local electricity rate of 13.12¢/kWh. Because the heat pump costs more to run here, the gap only widens with time: $6,231 behind after 15 years compared with replacing the furnace and AC like-for-like.
The break-even point in Smithfield
For the verdict in Smithfield to flip, electricity would need to drop to about 12.2¢/kWh from 13.12¢, or gas climb past $10.93 per Mcf from $10.19. A utility offering a lower heat pump rate can change this. Until then, no quote price makes a heat pump pay back against gas in Smithfield; the case for one here rests on comfort, cooling, or replacing electric heat instead.
The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with
Not every home in Smithfield has gas service. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. Switching saves about $1,387 a year here, a heat pump moving heat rather than generating it needs far less electricity than resistance coils, so the extra $10,000 spent up front comes back in about 7.2 years.
How Smithfield compares nationally
Smithfield lands at position 109 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 2393 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). That's the coldest third of the dataset, where climate does most of the work behind this figure.
Next step if you live in Smithfield
Smithfield, Utah is home to about 15,018 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 Smithfield, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Line up a few local HVAC quotes before you decide.
More on how this number was built
Every constant behind this page, the 2.75 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs, is documented in the methodology guide. Smithfield's 1.9°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.