Heat Pump Payback in West Bend, WI
Should West Bend switch to a heat pump?
Here in West Bend, 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 $5,500 more up front here. Unfortunately the electric bill outweighs the gas bill it replaces by about $409 a year here, so the extra spend stays unrecovered. There's no spin on that: West Bend's numbers say wait.
Checking a different city
This runs the same numbers for 3206 US cities, not just West Bend. Look one up here.
Why West Bend's climate drives this number
West Bend has a cold winter that leans hard on heating equipment, 5993 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base, and summers rarely ask much of an air conditioner, at 266 cooling degree days. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: -4°F here (coldest 2024 reading -9.4°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.6 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. West Bend 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. Source: NOAA station West Bend Municipal Airport, 2.4 miles from West Bend, the closest one on record.
The yearly running costs in West Bend
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 5,837 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $1,144 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 62 Mcf a year at $10.74 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $735 a year including the old AC (electricity here runs 18.87¢/kWh). 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 $11,632 behind.
What would change West Bend's answer
The heat pump would become the cheaper option in West Bend if electricity fell to 11.7¢/kWh (from 18.87¢) or gas rose above $17.29 per Mcf (from $10.74). At today's prices a cheaper quote cannot rescue the gas comparison in West Bend, since there is no yearly saving to recover it from.
The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with
Plenty of homes in West Bend heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. The saving here runs about $1,784 a year, which recovers the extra $10,000 spent going electric in roughly 5.6 years.
How West Bend compares nationally
West Bend lands at position 242 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 1271 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). That's the coldest third of the dataset, where climate does most of the work behind this figure.
Deciding what's next in West Bend, WI
About 32,149 people live in West Bend, Wisconsin, 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.
Ask a local HVAC contractor for a quote before committing either way.
More on how this number was built
Every constant behind this page, the 2.6 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs, is documented in the methodology guide. West Bend's -4°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.