Heat pump vs. gas furnace in Terre Haute, IN
In Terre Haute, a heat pump would cost more to run each year than what you have now. 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 $100 more a year to run than the furnace it replaces — a premium with no payback. There's no spin on that: Terre Haute's numbers say wait.
The climate behind Terre Haute's payback figure
Terre Haute has a real but manageable winter — 4142 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base — and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, at 1284 cooling degree days. -5.1°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here — the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day — with a record low of -6°F on file. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 2.58 on the cold-climate unit fit for this climate. A cold-climate unit is the right call in Terre Haute — below 25°F design temperature, a standard heat pump leans hard on electric-resistance backup, which erases most of the savings. Source: NOAA station TER HUTE INTL-HULMAN FD AP, 3.7 miles from Terre Haute — the closest one on record.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 4,065 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $879 a year. That compares with roughly 43 Mcf a year of gas at Terre Haute's 11.49 per-Mcf rate — about $779 a year — against a local electricity rate of 17.03¢/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 $4,995 behind.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Not every home in Terre Haute has gas service. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. Switching saves about $1,191 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 6.7 years.
How Terre Haute compares nationally
Terre Haute lands at position 1433 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 694 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 58,531 people in Terre Haute
About 58,531 people live in Terre Haute, Indiana, 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
Nothing above is a black box: the methodology guide shows the full arithmetic behind Terre Haute's 2.58 seasonal COP and payback figure. Terre Haute's -5.1°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.