Heat pump vs. gas furnace in Woods Cross, UT
Woods Cross technically pencils out, but only past the point the equipment would need replacing anyway. 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). Lower bills claw that back: about $110 saved annually, for a payback of roughly 31.9 years. That's a technicality, not a recommendation, for anyone actually living in Woods Cross.
Woods Cross's weather, in the numbers that matter
Woods Cross 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. Woods Cross 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 SALT LAKE CITY INTERNATIONAL, 7.1 miles from Woods Cross — the closest one on record.
Woods Cross's running-cost comparison, in dollars
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 3,740 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $692 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 49 Mcf a year at 10.19 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $802 a year (electricity here runs 13.12¢/kWh). Buy it outright, not incrementally, and payback stretches to 123.2 years; over 15 years the net position sits $1,856 behind.
Electric resistance heat in Woods Cross, compared
Gas isn't universal in Woods Cross — many houses run on electric heat already. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Woods Cross's answer improves. 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.
Where Woods Cross ranks in this dataset
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Woods Cross comes in at 1040 for heating severity — 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset — and 2900 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 11,493 people in Woods Cross
Woods Cross, Utah is home to about 11,493 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 Woods Cross, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
More on how this number was built
Nothing above is a black box: the methodology guide shows the full arithmetic behind Woods Cross's 3.16 seasonal COP and payback figure. At a 19°F design temperature, Woods Cross sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.