But in Texas, a heat pump wound probably be great. But yeah, natural gas is cheap.
The only people willing to install heatpumps are from an hour away and who spend their time building luxury homes. It's crazy to me that the rest of these guys aren't out there working with those Federal IRA funds and installing heat pumps left and right. We're climate zone 4 with a design temp of 6ºF, just about every modern HP will spend 99.9% of its time working at full BTU here.
I have my EPA cert, and I'd still probably go that route. The recovery pumps are expensive ($500+) and you need a recovery tank ($100), and then you still need to find somewhere that will take it from you. For a single job, it might be better to pay a HVAC company/moonlighting tech to do that part and do all the manual labor yourself.
With the way supply chains are right now, getting a less common unit means if you have a problem, and you will because half the components are imported now, you're going to be sweating it out while you wait 3-6 months for a part, and that's if you can find a tech to come out and diagnose it properly.
If I lived in the deep south, I'd get whatever the standard equipment is and spend the difference on extra solar panels.