Heat pump vs. gas furnace in Westminster, CO
In Westminster, a heat pump would cost more to run each year than what you have now. $3,500 is what Westminster would pay extra to go electric rather than replace the furnace and AC with the same again, once the $2,000 federal credit is applied. Unfortunately the electric bill outweighs the gas bill it replaces by about $157 a year here, so the extra spend stays unrecovered. There's no spin on that: Westminster's numbers say wait.
The climate behind Westminster's payback figure
4908 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Westminster has a real but manageable winter; the cooling side runs to 1015 cooling degree days, where summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: -5.8°F here (record low -11.2°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.56 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. Below the 25°F line where a standard machine starts leaning on resistance backup, Westminster sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. Source: NOAA station ATCT ROCKY MOUNTAIN METRO, 3.2 miles from Westminster — the closest one on record.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 4,855 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $946 a year on electricity. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 51 Mcf a year at 11.17 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $788 a year (electricity here runs 16.53¢/kWh). Priced as a standalone purchase rather than against a like-for-like replacement, equipment payback runs past the 15-year equipment life, for a 15-year net position $5,857 behind.
Electric resistance heat in Westminster, compared
Not every home in Westminster has gas service. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. The saving here runs about $1,326 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 6 years.
How Westminster compares nationally
Westminster lands at position 850 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 269 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.
Next step for 115,302 people in Westminster
About 115,302 people live in Westminster, Colorado, 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.
Where Westminster's figure comes from
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Westminster's 2.56 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. At a -5.8°F design temperature, Westminster sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.