Colorado Heating Pros

Heat pump vs furnace in Gilpin County, Colorado

Quote Both Systems

For homes in Gilpin County

Which costs less to run in Gilpin County?

An outdoor air conditioning condenser unit with a top-mounted fan grille sits on a concrete pad surrounded by mulch, against dark horizontal siding at night.

Heat pump

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

A beige sheet-metal furnace with louvered access panels stands against a dark blue painted basement wall on a concrete floor, with metal flue ducts rising from its top and gas piping along the wall.

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?

  • 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 a navy blue island topped by a white marble-look counter holding a black induction cooktop, a light blue kettle and a glass vase of hydrangeas, with white cabinets and a stainless wall oven in the background.

  • Heats and cools in one system

    A heat pump runs the same way all year. It pulls heat into the house in winter and pushes it out in summer.

    A living room with a beige sofa holding navy and light blue cushions and a blue throw, a wooden coffee table with a mug, bowl, books and white hydrangeas, flanked by table lamps and a bookshelf, in front of a large window overlooking a green garden.

  • Steady, even comfort

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

    A golden retriever sleeps on a patterned rug beside a navy wingback chair with a knit throw and open book, next to a lit floor lamp, a side table with a mug and small plant, gray built-in shelving, and a window showing snow outside.

Where does a furnace shine?

  • Strong, steady heat in hard cold

    Winter nights here average 15°F, and a furnace is built to push hard against that kind of cold without losing ground. It burns gas to make heat, so the air coming out of your vents stays warm even on the coldest night of the year.

    A dark navy clapboard house with a snow-covered roof and lit windows at dusk, with a shoveled path, a lantern in the snow, and snow-laden evergreen and bare trees around it.

  • Runs on the gas most homes here already use

    Just over half the homes in Gilpin County already heat with utility gas. If yours is one of them, the gas line is already there, so a furnace just hooks into what's already running to the house.

    A row of wood-sided houses along a snowy sidewalk, with concrete front steps, metal handrails, and an exterior gas meter with pipes mounted on a light blue clapboard wall.

  • Pairs with any central AC

    A furnace's blower and ducts carry cooled air too. Adding central AC uses the same system.

    A rectangular metal floor vent set in a hardwood floor near a window with a sheer white curtain, a navy wall, a round wooden table with a mug and white hydrangeas, and a light blue upholstered chair with a knit throw.

What the cold does to a heat pump here

Winter nights in Gilpin County average 15°F. That is the number to hold onto, because it sits below both of the marks that matter for a heat pump. Below 40°F a standard heat pump puts out less heat than its rating says. Below about 35°F it often needs backup heat to make up the difference. Your average winter night is colder than both marks, not just close to them.

This is not a handful of bad nights. About 190 nights a year here drop to freezing or below, roughly half the nights in the year, and the heat runs here every month. On almost every one of those cold nights, a standard heat pump is working below the point where it keeps up on its own. The 9 nights that hit 0°F or colder are a small slice of that, and backup heat tends to carry more of the load on nights like those.

A cold climate heat pump changes this picture. To earn that label a unit has to prove, in third party testing, that it still makes 1.75 units of heat for every unit of electricity at 5°F and holds onto 70 percent of its warm weather capacity at that temperature. Field testing on prototypes backs this up in practice: backup heat only covered a small share of the heat needed between 0°F and 35°F, and running on backup alone was rare even above 0°F. A furnace built to the federal minimum will not do this. A heat pump built to the federal minimum will not either. If a heat pump is going in a house here, this rating is what makes the difference between a system that keeps up and one that leans on backup heat most of the winter.

A single-story navy blue house with white trim, a one-car garage and a concrete driveway, surrounded by snow, pine trees, a wood fence, and snow-capped mountains in the background.

What it costs, and what your neighbors run

Running cost favors the furnace plainly. A furnace makes the same heat here for $1.26 per 100,000 Btu against $1.99 for a heat pump, both at the federal minimum and Colorado's average fuel prices. That is at least 36 percent less to run, and it holds for every month the heat is on, not just the cold ones.

Gas is also just what is already here. A little over half of homes in Gilpin County heat with utility gas, and another one in five run on propane. Electric heat is the setup in about one in five homes, the fewest of the three. If your house already has a gas line and ductwork sized for a furnace, a furnace keeps you on the system your house and your neighbors' houses were built around.

None of this rules out a heat pump. It costs more to run and it needs the cold climate rating to hold up on a 15°F night, but it heats and cools from one system and burns nothing indoors to do it. For a house with no gas line, or one already set up for central air, that can outweigh the running cost. For a house already on gas, with equipment that handles winters here, a furnace is the cheaper and simpler match.

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

A small navy-blue house with white trim, a covered porch and light blue front door, with a cleared paved walkway through deep snow, pine trees on either side and snow-covered mountains 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 a standard one struggles through the coldest stretches here. Overnight lows average 15°F in winter and drop to 0°F or below on about 9 nights a year, and a conventional heat pump only delivers a fraction of its rated heat at those temperatures. A cold-climate model, certified to hold at least 70 percent of its capacity at 5°F, is built for this kind of winter. Either way, backup heat covers the nights the heat pump can't keep up on its own.

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

    Most likely, yes. A standard heat pump's output falls below its rating once it's under 40°F outside, and it often needs backup heat below about 35°F. The average overnight low here runs 15°F in December, January and February, well past both marks, so backup heat matters most of the winter, not just on the coldest nights.

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

    Yes, and in Gilpin County that pairing is worth considering. A heat pump handles the milder nights on its own, and your furnace carries the load once it gets down into the teens or below, which happens on about 9 nights a year here. The furnace stays as the backup heat source instead of electric strip heat, which costs less to run at those temperatures.

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

    No, a furnace costs less to run here. Burning gas works out to $1.26 per 100,000 Btu of heat against $1.99 for a heat pump, at Colorado's average fuel prices. That's with the heat pump already running at its most efficient, before any backup heat gets added on the coldest nights.

A person in a dark blue shirt, jeans and cap works with gloved hands on overhead piping above a furnace and sheet-metal ductwork in a basement with painted concrete block walls, a blue door and a tool bag on the floor.

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