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 $3,500 more up front here (already netting out a $2,000 tax credit). 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.
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 (record low -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 (electricity here runs 18.87¢/kWh). Looked at as a full purchase rather than an incremental one, payback here is longer than the 15-year equipment life, leaving the 15-year total $9,545 behind.
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 $8,000 spent up front comes back in about 4.7 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.