Spring Hill, KS: the heat pump payback math
In Spring Hill, the extra upfront cost technically comes back, just not before the equipment wears out. 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). Lower bills claw that back: about $138 saved annually, for a payback of roughly 25.3 years. Spring Hill's own numbers say this pencils out only in theory, not in practice.
Why Spring Hill's climate drives this number
3895 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Spring Hill has a real but manageable winter; the cooling side runs to 1625 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: -4°F here (record low -8°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.6 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. Below the 25°F line where a standard machine starts leaning on resistance backup, Spring Hill sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. Source: NOAA station NEW CENTURY AIRCENTER ARPT, 6.4 miles from Spring Hill — the closest one on record.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 3,793 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $779 a year. Spring Hill's gas rate of 14.81 per Mcf, applied to the 41 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts its running cost near $918 a year, against 15.05¢ per kWh for electricity. Looked at as a full purchase rather than an incremental one, payback here is roughly 97.6 years, leaving the 15-year total $1,425 behind.
Electric resistance heat in Spring Hill, compared
Not every home in Spring Hill has gas service. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Spring Hill's answer improves. About $1,022 a year comes back this way, enough that the 7.8-year payback clears the $8,000 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.
Spring Hill against the rest of the country
Spring Hill lands at position 1589 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 3188 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
Next step for 10,070 people in Spring Hill
About 10,070 people live in Spring Hill, Kansas, 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.
Ask a local HVAC contractor for a quote before committing either way.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Spring Hill's 2.6 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Spring Hill's -4°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.