Should Swansea switch to a heat pump?

Here in Swansea, 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). The heat pump would cost about $74 more a year to run than the furnace it replaces — a premium with no payback. There's no spin on that: Swansea's numbers say wait.

The climate behind Swansea's payback figure

Degree days tell the story here: Swansea racks up 3677 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, with 1640 cooling degree days on the cooling side. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 2.5°F here (record low -3.8°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.76 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. A cold-climate unit is the right call in Swansea — 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 SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE/MIDAMERI, the closest NOAA station, 7.4 miles out.

Swansea's running-cost comparison, in dollars

Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 3,373 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $909 a year. That compares with roughly 38 Mcf a year of gas at Swansea's 11.25 per-Mcf rate — about $836 a year — against a local electricity rate of 19.06¢/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 $4,604 behind.

If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas

Not every home in Swansea has gas service. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. The saving here runs about $1,270 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 6.3 years.

How Swansea compares nationally

Swansea lands at position 1699 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 2454 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.

Deciding what's next in Swansea, IL

About 14,445 people live in Swansea, Illinois, 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.

Line up a few local HVAC quotes before you decide.

Where Swansea's figure comes from

The methodology guide walks through exactly how Swansea's 2.76 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Swansea's 2.5°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.