Heat Pump Payback in Tigard, OR
Should Tigard switch to a heat pump?
The payback math works in Tigard 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. Tigard's residents would see roughly $251 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 21.9 years. That's a technicality, not a recommendation, for anyone actually living in Tigard.
Compare against another city
Tigard is one of 3206 cities covered here, each run through the same model. Search another below.
Tigard's weather, in the numbers that matter
4589 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Tigard has a real but manageable winter; the cooling side runs to 411 cooling degree days, where summers add a moderate cooling load. 15.1°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here, the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day, with a low of 12.9°F in the 2024 station record. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 3.06 on the cold-climate unit fit for this climate. Tigard 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. These numbers come from Portland-Hillsboro Airport, the closest NOAA station, 11.4 miles out.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 3,797 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $628 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 48 Mcf a year at $16.71 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $879 a year including the old AC (electricity here runs 15.14¢/kWh). Buying outright rather than at replacement time stretches payback to longer than the 15-year equipment life. Over 15 years, compared with a like-for-like replacement, the heat pump leaves you $1,731 behind.
The break-even point in Tigard
Gas would only overtake the heat pump in Tigard if electricity rose past 22.1¢/kWh from 15.14¢, or gas fell under $11.45 per Mcf from $16.71. A useful quote test for Tigard: the heat pump is worth it within a decade if it costs less than $2,510 more than replacing the furnace and AC, and within 7 years if the gap is under $1,757.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Gas isn't universal in Tigard, 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 $1,212 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 8.3 years.
How Tigard compares nationally
Tigard lands at position 1099 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 716 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
What to do with this number in Tigard
Tigard, Oregon is home to about 57,301 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 Tigard, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Ask a local HVAC contractor for a quote before committing either way.
Where Tigard's figure comes from
Every constant behind this page, the 3.06 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs, is documented in the methodology guide. Tigard's 15.1°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.