Will a heat pump pay off in West Jordan, UT?
The payback math works in West Jordan on paper, past the equipment's own working life. 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). That premium is recovered through $110 of lower running costs every year, landing the payback clock at roughly 31.9 years. West Jordan's own numbers say this pencils out only in theory, not in practice.
The climate behind West Jordan's payback figure
West Jordan has a real but manageable winter — 4667 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base — and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, at 1804 cooling degree days. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 19°F here (record low 12.2°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 3.16 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. A cold-climate unit is the right call in West Jordan — below 25°F design temperature, a standard heat pump leans hard on electric-resistance backup, which erases most of the savings. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, SALT LAKE CITY INTERNATIONAL, 12.2 miles from West Jordan.
West Jordan's running-cost comparison, in dollars
A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 3,740 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $692 a year on electricity. West Jordan's gas rate of 10.19 per Mcf, applied to the 49 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts its running cost near $802 a year, against 13.12¢ per kWh for electricity. Looked at as a full purchase rather than an incremental one, payback here is roughly 123.2 years, leaving the 15-year total $1,856 behind.
The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with
Plenty of homes in West Jordan 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. About $1,165 a year comes back this way, enough that the 6.9-year payback clears the $8,000 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.
West Jordan against the rest of the country
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, West Jordan comes in at 1022 for heating severity — 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset — and 261 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 for 116,688 people in West Jordan
About 116,688 people live in West Jordan, Utah, 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.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
Reading further on this page's numbers
Every constant behind this page — the 3.16 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs — is documented in the methodology guide. At a 19°F design temperature, West Jordan sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.