Heat Pump Payback in Warwick, RI
Is a heat pump worth it in Warwick?
Warwick is a place where a heat pump genuinely costs more to operate than the alternative. $5,500 is what Warwick would pay extra to go electric rather than replace the furnace and AC with the same again. The heat pump would cost about $31 more a year to run than the furnace it replaces, a premium with no payback. There's no spin on that: Warwick's numbers say wait.
Not the city you meant?
Warwick is one of 3206 cities covered here, each run through the same model. Search another below.
The climate behind Warwick's payback figure
Degree days tell the story here: Warwick racks up 5140 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers add a moderate cooling load, with 708 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 12°F, and the coldest daily reading in the 2024 station record was 9°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 2.99 for the recommended cold-climate unit. Below the 25°F line where a standard machine starts leaning on resistance backup, Warwick sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, Theodore F Green State Airpor, 1.5 miles from Warwick.
Warwick's running-cost comparison, in dollars
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 4,353 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $1,461 a year. Warwick's gas rate of $21.66 per Mcf, applied to the 54 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts the current furnace-and-AC running cost near $1,430 a year, against 29.48¢ per kWh for electricity. With running costs higher every year, there is no payback at any purchase price; over 15 years, against a like-for-like replacement, a household here would end $5,968 behind.
How sensitive Warwick's result is to prices
The heat pump would become the cheaper option in Warwick if electricity fell to 28.7¢/kWh (from 29.48¢) or gas rose above $22.24 per Mcf (from $21.66). At today's prices a cheaper quote cannot rescue the gas comparison in Warwick, since there is no yearly saving to recover it from.
The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with
Gas isn't universal in Warwick, many houses run on electric heat already. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. Switching saves about $2,646 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 3.8 years.
How Warwick compares nationally
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Warwick comes in at 589 for heating severity, 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset, and 439 by population, where 1 is largest. That's the coldest third of the dataset, where climate does most of the work behind this figure.
Next step if you live in Warwick
About 83,554 people live in Warwick, Rhode Island, 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.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Warwick's 2.99 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Warwick's 12°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.