Reviewed 2026-09-01
Heating and cooling cost in San Antonio, TX
| Scope | Low | Typical | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gas heat, planning year | $420 | $490 | $590 |
| Heat-pump heat, planning year | $450 | $530 | $630 |
| Cooling, planning year | $760 | $890 | $1,110 |
What does it cost to heat and cool a home in San Antonio?
A planning year in San Antonio costs about $490 to heat the example home with gas, about $530 to heat it with a heat pump, and about $890 to cool it. These are not install prices and they are not your utility bill. They exist so a furnace quote and a heat-pump quote can be read next to a year of energy, instead of next to a brochure. The example home is about 1,750 square feet, built around 1986. slab houses and limestone older stock inside the loop, attic systems
The arithmetic, in the open
Gas therms equal heating degree days times square feet times 0.00012. For this house that is 1,570 times 1,750 times 0.00012, about 330 therms. Therms are priced at $1.50 a therm, which you can change in the bar. Wellholt does not have a San Antonio gas tariff, so it will not invent one. Heat-pump kilowatt-hours take those therms, convert at 29.3 kilowatt-hours per therm, and divide by 2.6, a planning efficiency, not a nameplate. That is about 3,715 kilowatt-hours, priced at the city’s 14.2¢. Cooling kilowatt-hours equal cooling degree days times square feet times 0.0012, about 6,279 kilowatt-hours at the same rate. A tighter house, a worse house, or a different thermostat will not match this. The low column is 85 percent of the planning year. The high column is 120 percent for heat and 125 percent for cooling, a stand-in for a harder weather year, not a repair.
Why San Antonio is not a national bill
The national reference year is about 4,000 heating degree days and 1,400 cooling degree days. San Antonio is zone 2A, with 1,570 and 2,990. Electricity at 14.2¢ is below the 16.8¢ reference, and it hits the heat pump and the cooling line. It does not hit the gas line, because gas uses $1.50 a therm from the bar instead of a made-up local tariff. CPS Energy is the municipal utility for much of the city. Rates used here are a planning blend, not a CPS bill.
How to use this next to a quote
A ducted heat pump in San Antonio costs more to install than a gas furnace. The furnace page has those stickers. This page only has the year after. If gas heat is $490 and heat-pump heat is $530, the difference is $30 a year, in favor of gas on energy alone. That comparison ignores the cooling the heat pump also does, which is the $890 line, and it ignores maintenance. Do not divide an install gap by this difference and call it a payback unless both houses are the one you live in. San Antonio labor prices under the national factor, and the climate still demands long cooling hours with humidity. Older limestone houses near the center do not match the 1980s slab house this page uses as typical. If your place is prewar, treat the typical column as optimistic on access.
What this will not do
It will not read your meter. It will not apply a time-of-use rate, a gas utility’s winter slope, or a budget-billing plan that hides the summer. It will not tell a renter to replace a furnace. A renter can use it to understand why a cheap rent in a hot city is not a cheap year, and why a cold city with a low electric rate is a different problem from a cold city with a high one. Set your own square footage before you treat 1,750 as your house.
Reviewed 2026-09-01. Planning model: IECC climate zone, degree-day normals, a metro labor factor, and a residential rate used only for operating-cost context. Installed costs start from published national ranges and scale the labor share. Rents are planning medians, not listings. Reviewed 2026-09-01. If a salesperson quotes a yearly savings with no degree days and no rate, ask them to write both down next to these. The planning year here is gas $490, heat pump $530, cooling $890, for about 1,750 square feet in San Antonio.
Questions this page can answer
- How much does it cost to heat a house in San Antonio?
- For the example home, about $490 a year on gas at 1.50 a therm, or about $530 with a heat pump at 14.2u00a2 per kilowatt-hour. Not your bill.
- How much is air conditioning in San Antonio?
- About $890 a planning year, from 2,990 cooling degree days. A hotter summer is the high column, not a different house.
- Why is gas not using a San Antonio rate?
- Type your price per therm in the bar. Until you do, this page uses $1.50. There is no San Antonio gas tariff in the data, so the page will not invent one. The degree days still change how much gas the house uses.