Heat Pump Payback in Steubenville, OH
Heat pump vs. gas furnace in Steubenville, OH
Steubenville technically pencils out, but only past the point the equipment would need replacing anyway. $5,500 is what Steubenville would pay extra to go electric rather than replace the furnace and AC with the same again. Steubenville's residents would see roughly $28 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 195.1 years. Steubenville's own numbers say this pencils out only in theory, not in practice.
Checking a different city
This runs the same numbers for 3206 US cities, not just Steubenville. Look one up here.
Why Steubenville's climate drives this number
4279 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Steubenville has a real but manageable winter; the cooling side runs to 1149 cooling degree days, where summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating. The 99% winter design temperature here, the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average, is 9°F, and the coldest daily reading in the 2024 station record was 7°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 2.92 for the recommended cold-climate unit. Below the 25°F line where a standard machine starts leaning on resistance backup, Steubenville sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. Source: NOAA station Wheeling Ohio County Airport, 13.2 miles from Steubenville, the closest one on record.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 3,711 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $863 a year. Steubenville's gas rate of $13.85 per Mcf, applied to the 45 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts the current furnace-and-AC running cost near $891 a year, against 18.40¢ per kWh for electricity. Buying outright rather than at replacement time stretches payback to longer than the 15-year equipment life. Over 15 years, compared with a like-for-like replacement, the heat pump leaves you $5,077 behind.
How sensitive Steubenville's result is to prices
This result holds unless electricity climbs above 19.3¢/kWh (it is 18.40¢ now) or gas drops below $13.22 per Mcf (now $13.85); past either point, gas becomes the cheaper fuel in Steubenville. When quotes arrive, compare the heat pump price with a like-for-like furnace and AC replacement: at $28 a year saved, a difference under $196 pays back within 7 years here, and under $280 within 10.
The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with
Not every home in Steubenville has gas service. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. Switching saves about $1,405 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 7.1 years.
Steubenville against the rest of the country
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Steubenville comes in at 1354 for heating severity, 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset, and 2096 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 Steubenville
About 18,029 people live in Steubenville, 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.
Ask a local HVAC contractor for a quote before committing either way.
Where Steubenville's figure comes from
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Steubenville's 2.92 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Steubenville's 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.