Heat Pump Payback in Somersworth, NH
Is a heat pump worth it in Somersworth?
In Somersworth, a heat pump would cost more to run each year than what you have now. $5,500 is what Somersworth would pay extra to go electric rather than replace the furnace and AC with the same again. Unfortunately the electric bill outweighs the gas bill it replaces by about $97 a year here, so the extra spend stays unrecovered. There's no spin on that: Somersworth's numbers say wait.
Not the city you meant?
This runs the same numbers for 3206 US cities, not just Somersworth. Look one up here.
The climate behind Somersworth's payback figure
Somersworth has a cold winter that leans hard on heating equipment, 5453 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base, and summers add a moderate cooling load, at 883 cooling degree days. The 99% winter design temperature here, the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average, is 10°F, and the coldest daily reading in the 2024 station record was 7°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 2.94 for the recommended cold-climate unit. A cold-climate unit is the right call in Somersworth, 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 Skyhaven Airport, the closest NOAA station, 2.4 miles out.
Somersworth's running-cost comparison, in dollars
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 4,697 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $1,460 a year. That compares with roughly 57 Mcf a year of gas at Somersworth's $18.61 per-Mcf rate, about $1,364 a year with the old AC included, against a local electricity rate of 26.80¢/kWh. With running costs higher every year, there is no payback at any purchase price; over 15 years, against a like-for-like replacement, a household here would end $6,953 behind.
The break-even point in Somersworth
The heat pump would become the cheaper option in Somersworth if electricity fell to 24.6¢/kWh (from 26.80¢) or gas rose above $20.32 per Mcf (from $18.61). At today's prices a cheaper quote cannot rescue the gas comparison in Somersworth, since there is no yearly saving to recover it from.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Plenty of homes in Somersworth heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Somersworth's answer improves. About $2,547 a year comes back this way, enough that the 3.9-year payback clears the $10,000 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.
Where Somersworth ranks in this dataset
Somersworth lands at position 406 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 2782 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.
What to do with this number in Somersworth
About 12,218 people live in Somersworth, New Hampshire, 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
Nothing above is a black box: the methodology guide shows the full arithmetic behind Somersworth's 2.94 seasonal COP and payback figure. Somersworth's 10°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.