Heat Pump Payback in Tulsa, OK
Should Tulsa switch to a heat pump?
In Tulsa, the extra upfront cost technically comes back, just not before the equipment wears out. Swap a failed furnace and AC for a heat pump rather than buying like-for-like, and the extra cost here runs $5,500. Lower bills claw that back: about $203 saved annually, for a payback of roughly 27.1 years. Tulsa's own numbers say this pencils out only in theory, not in practice.
Not the city you meant?
This runs the same numbers for 3206 US cities, not just Tulsa. Look one up here.
The climate behind Tulsa's payback figure
2787 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Tulsa has a mild winter by US standards; the cooling side runs to 2395 cooling degree days, where summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating. 0°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here, the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day, with a low of -2.9°F in the 2024 station record. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 2.7 on the cold-climate unit fit for this climate. The average winter here is gentle, but sizing follows the cold snaps, and 0°F is below the 25°F point where a standard unit leans on resistance backup, so a cold-climate unit is what gets priced for Tulsa. Source: NOAA station Tulsa International Airport, 5 miles from Tulsa, the closest one on record.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 2,614 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $610 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 29 Mcf a year at $13.99 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $813 a year including the old AC (electricity here runs 13.10¢/kWh). Priced as a standalone purchase, with a working furnace ripped out early, payback would take longer than the 15-year equipment life. Measured against the like-for-like replacement instead, a household here ends 15 years $2,458 behind.
How sensitive Tulsa's result is to prices
This result holds unless electricity climbs above 26.2¢/kWh (it is 13.10¢ now) or gas drops below $7.00 per Mcf (now $13.99); past either point, gas becomes the cheaper fuel in Tulsa. When quotes arrive, compare the heat pump price with a like-for-like furnace and AC replacement: at $203 a year saved, a difference under $1,421 pays back within 7 years here, and under $2,030 within 10.
Electric resistance heat in Tulsa, compared
Plenty of homes in Tulsa heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Tulsa's answer improves. About $721 a year comes back this way, enough that the 13.9-year payback clears the $10,000 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.
Tulsa against the rest of the country
Among 3206 cities, Tulsa's winter puts it at rank 2008 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 48 for population, 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
Deciding what's next in Tulsa, OK
About 415,154 people live in Tulsa, Oklahoma, 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.
Reading further on this page's numbers
Every constant behind this page, the 2.7 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs, is documented in the methodology guide. Tulsa's 0°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.