Heat Pump Payback in Stoughton, WI
Stoughton, WI: the heat pump payback math
Here in Stoughton, the honest answer is that a heat pump raises your annual running cost. Against a like-for-like gas furnace and AC swap, going electric costs $5,500 more up front here. Unfortunately the electric bill outweighs the gas bill it replaces by about $403 a year here, so the extra spend stays unrecovered. There's no spin on that: Stoughton's numbers say wait.
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Why Stoughton's climate drives this number
Degree days tell the story here: Stoughton racks up 5775 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers add a moderate cooling load, with 761 cooling degree days on the cooling side. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: -9°F here (coldest 2024 reading -11°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.48 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. Stoughton needs the cold-climate class of unit: past a 25°F design temperature a standard heat pump falls back on resistance backup often enough to eat the savings. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, Dane Co Regional-Truax Field, 16.2 miles from Stoughton.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 5,896 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $1,235 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 60 Mcf a year at $10.74 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $832 a year including the old AC (electricity here runs 18.87¢/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 $11,545 behind.
What would change Stoughton's answer
The heat pump would become the cheaper option in Stoughton if electricity fell to 11.6¢/kWh (from 18.87¢) or gas rose above $17.44 per Mcf (from $10.74). At today's prices a cheaper quote cannot rescue the gas comparison in Stoughton, since there is no yearly saving to recover it from.
Electric resistance heat in Stoughton, compared
Gas isn't universal in Stoughton, many houses run on electric heat already. Against electric-resistance heat, baseboard or an electric furnace, both 100% efficient but still just resistance, the case for switching gets stronger here. Switching saves about $1,710 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 5.8 years.
How Stoughton compares nationally
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Stoughton comes in at 290 for heating severity, 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset, and 2634 by population, where 1 is largest. 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 Stoughton
About 13,134 people live in Stoughton, Wisconsin, 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
Every constant behind this page, the 2.48 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs, is documented in the methodology guide. Stoughton's -9°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.