West Linn, OR: the heat pump payback math
This one's marginal in West Linn: it only clears if you stay long enough. Swap a failed furnace and AC for a heat pump rather than buying like-for-like, and the extra cost here runs $3,500 after a $2,000 federal tax credit. That premium is recovered through $256 of lower running costs every year, landing the payback clock at roughly 13.7 years. It's a genuine toss-up here — West Linn's numbers don't point clearly either way.
How cold West Linn actually gets
Degree days tell the story here: West Linn racks up 4286 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers add a moderate cooling load, with 518 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 16°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 3.13 for the recommended cold-climate unit. A cold-climate unit is the right call in West Linn — below 25°F design temperature, a standard heat pump leans hard on electric-resistance backup, which erases most of the savings. Source: NOAA station AURORA STATE AIRPORT, 10.3 miles from West Linn — the closest one on record.
The month-to-month numbers for West Linn
A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 3,467 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $592 a year on electricity. West Linn's gas rate of 16.71 per Mcf, applied to the 45 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts its running cost near $848 a year, against 15.14¢ per kWh for electricity. Looked at as a full purchase rather than an incremental one, payback here is roughly 52.8 years, leaving the 15-year total $336 ahead.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Gas isn't universal in West Linn — 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 $1,153 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 6.9 years.
How West Linn compares nationally
Among 3206 cities, West Linn's winter puts it at rank 1339 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 1501 for population — 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
Next step for 26,597 people in West Linn
West Linn, Oregon is home to about 26,597 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 West Linn, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
Where West Linn's figure comes from
The methodology guide walks through exactly how West Linn's 3.13 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. West Linn's 18°F design temperature is below the 25°F line, which is why a cold-climate unit is the right call here — see what that changes in the cold-climate unit guide.