Should Tigard switch to a heat pump?
This one's marginal in Tigard: it only clears if you stay long enough. 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). Tigard's residents would see roughly $251 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 13.9 years. It's a genuine toss-up here — Tigard's numbers don't point clearly either way.
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 record low of 12.9°F on file. 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 (electricity here runs 15.14¢/kWh). Buy it outright, not incrementally, and payback stretches to 53.7 years; over 15 years the net position sits $269 ahead.
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 $8,000 spent up front comes back in about 6.6 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.