Should Urbana switch to a heat pump?

Here in Urbana, the honest answer is that a heat pump raises your annual running cost. 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). Running costs here land $10 a year HIGHER than the furnace it replaces, so that premium is never recovered. That's Urbana's own climate and rates talking, not a hedge or a caveat.

Urbana's weather, in the numbers that matter

Degree days tell the story here: Urbana racks up 3895 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers add a moderate cooling load, with 993 cooling degree days on the cooling side. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 3.2°F here (record low -2.2°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.78 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. Urbana 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 BELLEFONTAINE REGIONAL AIRPOR, the closest NOAA station, 18.1 miles out.

What it actually costs to run, year to year

Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 3,548 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $809 a year. Urbana's gas rate of 13.85 per Mcf, applied to the 41 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts its running cost near $799 a year, against 18.40¢ per kWh for electricity. Buy it outright, not incrementally, and payback stretches to beyond the 15-year equipment life; over 15 years the net position sits $3,649 behind.

If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas

Plenty of homes in Urbana heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Urbana's answer improves. Switching saves about $1,243 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 6.4 years.

How Urbana compares nationally

Among 3206 cities, Urbana's winter puts it at rank 1588 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 2945 for population — 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.

What to do with this number in Urbana

Urbana, Ohio is home to about 11,211 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 Urbana, 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

The methodology guide walks through exactly how Urbana's 2.78 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Urbana's 3.2°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.