Tyler, TX: the heat pump payback math
Tyler sits right on the fence — how long you'll own the house decides this one. $3,500 is what Tyler would pay extra to go electric rather than replace the furnace and AC with the same again, once the $2,000 federal credit is applied. That premium is recovered through $326 of lower running costs every year, landing the payback clock at roughly 10.7 years. It's a genuine toss-up here — Tyler's numbers don't point clearly either way.
How cold Tyler actually gets
Degree days tell the story here: Tyler racks up 1555 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers are severe enough that cooling can dominate the annual bill, with 2996 cooling degree days on the cooling side. The 99% winter design temperature here — the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average — is 18°F, against a record low of 12.9°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 3.13 for the recommended cold-climate unit. Below the 25°F line where a standard machine starts leaning on resistance backup, Tyler sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. Source: NOAA station TYLER POUNDS REGIONAL ARPT, 6.2 miles from Tyler — the closest one on record.
Tyler's running-cost comparison, in dollars
A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 1,258 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $616 a year on electricity. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 16 Mcf a year at 19.42 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $942 a year (electricity here runs 16.15¢/kWh). Priced as a standalone purchase rather than against a like-for-like replacement, equipment payback runs about 41.4 years, for a 15-year net position $1,388 ahead.
The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with
Gas isn't universal in Tyler — 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 $647 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 12.4 years.
Where Tyler ranks in this dataset
Tyler lands at position 2668 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 285 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). That's the mildest third of cities covered, where utility rates carry more of the answer than climate does.
Next step for 112,219 people in Tyler
Tyler, Texas is home to about 112,219 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 Tyler, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Ask a local HVAC contractor for a quote before committing either way.
Reading further on this page's numbers
Nothing above is a black box: the methodology guide shows the full arithmetic behind Tyler's 3.13 seasonal COP and payback figure. Tyler's 18°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.