Heat Pump Payback in Texarkana, AR
Is a heat pump worth it in Texarkana?
The payback math works in Texarkana on paper, past the equipment's own working life. Against a like-for-like gas furnace and AC swap, going electric costs $5,500 more up front here. That premium is recovered through $343 of lower running costs every year, landing the payback clock at roughly 16.1 years. That's a technicality, not a recommendation, for anyone actually living in Texarkana.
Checking a different city
This runs the same numbers for 3206 US cities, not just Texarkana. Look one up here.
How cold Texarkana actually gets
Texarkana has a mild winter by US standards, 1769 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base, and summers are severe enough that cooling can dominate the annual bill, at 3023 cooling degree days. The 99% winter design temperature here, the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average, is 18°F, and the coldest daily reading in the 2024 station record was 10.9°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 3.13 for the recommended cold-climate unit. Mild on average, but the occasional cold snap is what sizes the equipment: at a 18°F design temperature Texarkana falls just under the 25°F line where a standard heat pump starts leaning on resistance backup, so the model prices a cold-climate unit to be safe. These numbers come from Texarkana Regional Airport-We, the closest NOAA station, 1.4 miles out.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 1,431 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $532 a year. That compares with roughly 18 Mcf a year of gas at Texarkana's $19.25 per-Mcf rate, about $875 a year with the old AC included, against a local electricity rate of 13.28¢/kWh. If the current system still worked and you replaced it anyway, the full cost would take longer than the 15-year equipment life to earn back; against buying a new furnace and AC regardless, the 15-year total lands $361 behind.
The break-even point in Texarkana
Gas would only overtake the heat pump in Texarkana if electricity rose past 390.6¢/kWh from 13.28¢, or gas fell under $0.65 per Mcf from $19.25. A useful quote test for Texarkana: the heat pump is worth it within a decade if it costs less than $3,430 more than replacing the furnace and AC, and within 7 years if the gap is under $2,401.
Electric resistance heat in Texarkana, compared
Gas isn't universal in Texarkana, many houses run on electric heat already. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Texarkana's answer improves. The gap still doesn't close: the $10,000 incremental cost outlasts the 15-year equipment life here even against resistance heat.
Where Texarkana ranks in this dataset
Among 3206 cities, Texarkana's winter puts it at rank 2554 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 1388 for population, 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the mildest third of cities covered, where utility rates carry more of the answer than climate does.
Next step if you live in Texarkana
Texarkana, Arkansas is home to about 28,897 people, and the figures above are the same ones a local HVAC contractor uses to size and quote a system, this site doesn't guess where a real quote would land, it just tells you whether it's worth asking for one. In Texarkana, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Ask a local HVAC contractor for a quote before committing either way.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Texarkana's 3.13 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Texarkana's 18°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.