Colorado Heating Pros

Heat pump vs furnace in Arapahoe County, Colorado

Request a Quote

Heat pump or furnace, one form

Which costs less to run in Arapahoe County?

A gray outdoor air conditioner condenser unit on a concrete pad beside a dark blue horizontal lap-sided wall at night, with a wall-mounted disconnect box and conduit above it.

Heat pump

To heat your home here$1.99per 100,000 Btu

A beige residential furnace with a metal flue pipe rising to the ceiling stands against a dark blue painted basement wall on a concrete floor.

Furnace

To heat your home here$1.26per 100,000 Btu

At Colorado's gas and electricity prices, a gas furnace makes the same heat as a heat pump for at least 36% less.

Btu stands for British thermal unit, the standard measure of heat energy.

Where does a heat pump shine?

  • Steady, even comfort

    A heat pump runs long and low instead of blasting on and off. Rooms hold an even temperature all day.

    A dimly lit living room at night with a dark blue armchair holding an open book and knit throw, a lit table lamp, a stone fireplace with a log basket, and a yellow Labrador sleeping on a patterned rug.

  • Heats and cools in one system

    Winter and summer are covered by the same outdoor unit. That's one machine to service instead of two.

    A living room with a light gray sofa holding navy and pale blue pillows and a navy fringed throw, a rustic wood coffee table with a woven tray and hydrangeas in a white vase, a navy built-in bookshelf at left, and large windows showing green trees and flowering shrubs.

  • No gas line, nothing burning in the house

    There's no gas line to the unit and no flame anywhere in it. Carbon monoxide isn't part of the picture.

    A kitchen with navy blue shaker cabinets, white subway tile backsplash, light stone countertops, a stainless range hood over a cooktop with a pale blue kettle, and an island holding a vase of white hydrangeas and a bowl of green apples with wooden stools.

Where does a furnace shine?

  • Proven, simple, easy to get serviced

    Parts are easy to find and most repairs are routine. Getting one fixed rarely means waiting on a specialist.

    A gloved hand holds a white pleated air filter in front of a utility room with wire shelving, storage bins, towels, a blue door, and metal ductwork beside a furnace.

  • Runs on the gas most homes here already use

    Most homes in Arapahoe County already heat with gas, about 65.4% of them. If yours is one, a furnace just uses the line that's already run to your house.

    A row of brick houses with covered porches and light blue railed front steps along a snow-lined sidewalk, with a person in dark clothing walking away in the distance under bare trees.

  • Fast, strong heat on demand

    Turn the heat up and the furnace answers right away. There's no long wait for the house to catch up.

    A mudroom with a dark blue door where a person in a dark coat reaches for the handle, snowy boots on a rug, a steaming mug on a wooden bench with wicker baskets, and a coat and throw hanging on wall hooks.

Can a heat pump keep up on a 16 degree night

Your winters here are the whole question. Heat runs about eight months a year in Arapahoe County, October through May, and the overnight low averages 16°F across December, January and February. A standard heat pump starts losing ground before it even gets that cold. Below 40°F it puts out less heat than its rating says, and below about 35°F it usually needs backup heat to make up the difference. Sixteen degrees is past both marks, and so is every night that drops to freezing or below. That happens about 165 nights a year here, out of roughly 245 nights in the eight months the heat runs. That is most of the season, not a cold snap.

A gas furnace does not have that problem. It burns gas to make heat, and the outdoor temperature does not change how much heat it makes. The furnace puts out the same heat it is rated for whether it is 30 degrees outside or well below freezing.

A small part of the winter is more extreme still. About 6 nights a year here fall to 0°F or below. That is where a standard heat pump is weakest and leans hardest on backup heat. It is a small slice of the season, but it is the part where the two machines differ most.

If you go with a heat pump here, the one built for this is the kind rated for cold climates. To earn that rating, a heat pump has to keep making real heat at 5°F, at least 1.75 units of heat per unit of electricity, and hold on to 70 percent of its warm weather output even at that temperature, verified by outside testing rather than taken on faith. A standard heat pump is not built to do that. A cold climate one is. Field testing of prototype cold climate heat pumps over two winters found backup heat covering only a small share of the heat needed between 0°F and 35°F, and running on backup heat alone was rare even above 0°F.

A small navy-blue house with white trim, light blue door and shutters, and a snow-covered roof, surrounded by deep snow, snow-laden evergreens, and snowy mountains under a clear blue sky.

What it costs to run, and what it means for summer

At Colorado's current fuel prices, the furnace is cheaper to run. Making 100,000 Btu of heat costs $1.26 with gas against $1.99 with electricity, and that heat pump figure already assumes the best case, with nothing added for backup heat. Gas is also what most of your neighbors are already set up for. Utility gas heats about two in three homes in Arapahoe County, electricity a little under one in three, so a furnace runs on the fuel this county was largely built around.

That cost gap is real, but it is not the whole decision, because a furnace only does half the job. It heats, and that is all it does. It has nothing to offer for the three months a year you run cooling here, June through August, including the roughly 45 days a year that reach 90°F or hotter. Buy a furnace and you still need a separate air conditioner to get through those months.

A heat pump does both from one system, heat in the winter and cooling in the summer, which is the real case for it here even with the higher running cost. Whether that is worth it comes down to what matters more to you: the lower cost and simplicity of a furnace plus a separate air conditioner, or one system that handles both seasons, costs more to run, and needs the cold climate rating to hold up on a January night in this county.

Sources: NOAA nClimDiv · NOAA 1991–2020 seasonal normals · Census ACS 2020–2024 · EIA SEDS 2024 · 10 CFR 430.32 · PNNL Building America guide · PNNL-37127 field study · ENERGY STAR product criteria

A single-story navy blue house with white trim and a small covered porch, its roof covered in snow, flanked by tall pine trees with snow-covered ground and a snowy mountain range under a clear blue sky.

Common questions about heat pumps and furnaces

  • Can a heat pump heat a house through a Colorado winter?

    It can, but not alone on the coldest nights. A standard heat pump puts out less than its rated heat once it's below 40°F outside, and only a fraction of that below the teens. The average overnight low here is 16°F, so most winter nights fall well into that range, which is why these systems are usually paired with a backup heat source.

  • Do I need backup heat with a heat pump here?

    Most homes here would need it. A standard heat pump's output falls below its rating under 40°F and it often needs backup below about 35°F, and the overnight low here averages 16°F across December, January and February. About 165 nights a year drop to freezing or below, so backup heat would be doing real work more than half the nights the heat runs.

  • Can I keep my furnace and add a heat pump?

    Yes, and here that often makes sense. A setup like that runs the heat pump most of the year and lets the furnace take over on the coldest nights, the ones below about 35°F where a standard heat pump's efficiency drops. With 165 nights a year here at or below freezing, the furnace would still have real work to do.

  • Is a heat pump cheaper to run than a furnace in Arapahoe County?

    No, a furnace costs less to run here. A furnace makes heat for $1.26 per 100,000 Btu against $1.99 for a heat pump, both at Colorado's average fuel prices. That gap comes from gas costing less per Btu here than electricity, not from either machine being broken in or worn out.

A gloved technician connects refrigerant lines with brass fittings at the side of a gray outdoor air conditioner condenser on a concrete pad beside a blue-sided house, with wrenches and a tool bag on the ground nearby.

Tell us about the job

Takes about a minute. No obligation.

Step 1 of 3: Equipment