Colorado Heating Pros

Heat pump vs furnace in El Paso County, Colorado

Price Both Options

Match with a pro in El Paso County

Which costs less to run in El Paso County?

An outdoor air conditioning condenser unit on a concrete pad beside a dark horizontal-lap sided wall at night, lit by a wall light above, with an electrical disconnect box mounted on the siding.

Heat pump

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

A beige gas furnace with a louvered upper panel stands on a concrete floor against a dark blue wall, with a metal flue pipe and gas and electrical lines running up beside it.

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

    It moves heat instead of making it from fire. That means no combustion, no flue and no gas bill for heat.

    Kitchen with white subway tile backsplash, stainless range hood, a stainless kettle on a black cooktop set in a light countertop above navy cabinets and a wall oven, with a potted plant, utensil crock and wooden cutting board nearby and a dining area with pendant light in the background.

  • Heats and cools in one system

    One machine handles the heat in winter and the cooling in summer. There's no second system to buy or keep up.

    A living room with a cream sofa holding navy and light blue pillows and a blue throw, a wood-and-metal coffee table with books, a pitcher and potted plant, a jute rug, a navy built-in bookshelf at left, and a large window showing green trees and shrubs.

  • Steady, even comfort

    Instead of short bursts of heat, it keeps a gentle, steady output going. The house stays at one comfortable temperature.

    A dimly lit living room at night with a navy armchair holding an open book and a knitted throw, a lit table lamp, a stone fireplace with a fire, built-in blue shelving, and a golden retriever sleeping on a light rug.

Where does a furnace shine?

  • Strong, steady heat in hard cold

    Nights in El Paso County average 17°F through December, January and February. A furnace burns gas to heat the air, so it puts out the same hot air on those cold nights as it does in milder weather.

    A two-story dark blue house with white trim, a covered front porch and lit windows at dusk, with snow on the roof and a shoveled path leading to the front steps between snowbanks.

  • Runs on the gas most homes here already use

    Most homes in El Paso County already have gas line run to them for heat. If yours is one of them, a gas furnace just hooks into what's already there.

    A row of houses with covered porches, columns and railings along a snow-covered front yard and sidewalk, with a gas meter on a stone foundation and a person walking in the distance.

  • Proven, simple, easy to get serviced

    Gas furnaces have heated homes for generations. Almost every HVAC tech knows them inside and out.

    A gloved hand holds a white pleated air filter in front of a basement furnace, with wooden shelving holding bins, baskets, and folded towels on the right.

What the cold does to a heat pump here

Winter nights here average 17°F. About 180 of them drop to freezing or below, over half the nights in the nine months your heat runs. 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. Below about 35°F it usually needs backup heat to make up the difference. Every one of your 180 freezing nights falls under both marks.

The heat pump priced in the running-cost comparison above is built to the federal minimum, the kind made for an average climate, not nine months of freezing nights. A cold-climate model is a different machine. To carry the ENERGY STAR Cold Climate label, it has to hold at least 70 percent of its heating capacity at 5°F and still make 1.75 units of heat for every unit of electricity at that temperature, verified by outside testing. If a heat pump goes into a house here, that rating is what to check for.

Your coldest nights, the roughly 9 a year at 0°F or below, are the extreme, not the rule. Field testing on cold-climate heat pumps in occupied homes found backup heat covered only a small share of the load between 0°F and 35°F, and running on backup alone was rare even above 0°F. A cold-climate heat pump handles the range your winter actually sits in. A standard one is not built for it.

Snow-covered wooden steps and railing lead to a light blue door on a dark navy board-and-batten cabin, with stacked firewood, a wall lantern, and snowy conifers behind.

What it costs to run, and what's already there

A gas furnace costs less to run here, $1.26 against $1.99 per 100,000 Btu of heat, at Colorado's own gas and electric prices. That gap comes from the price of the fuel, not the temperature outside, so it holds the same on a 32°F night as it does on a 0°F one. Over a nine-month heating season, that is the steadier number to plan a budget around.

Utility gas already heats a little over two in three homes in this county, 69.3 percent. Electricity heats about one in four, 24.9 percent. Neither number decides the choice, but a house already on a gas line is not paying to bring in a fuel a furnace needs, and a house without one is starting from a different place.

A furnace costs less to run and carries your 180 freezing nights without leaning on a second heat source. A heat pump does something a furnace never will: it cools the house too, for the two months a year, July and August, cooling runs here. A standard heat pump bought at the federal minimum, the one priced above, will not hold its rated output through an average night here. A cold-climate heat pump is built for that cold and still cools in summer. That is the real choice: a furnace alone, or a cold-climate heat pump doing both jobs.

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

A dark blue two-story house with white trim and a covered front porch stands behind snow-covered ground, with tall pine trees and a snowy mountain ridge under a clear blue sky.

Common questions about heat pumps and furnaces

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

    A standard heat pump will struggle on a lot of nights here. About 180 nights a year fall to freezing or below, and every one of them is past the point where a standard heat pump's output drops below its rating. A cold-climate heat pump holds up much better in that kind of cold, but check the rating of the specific unit against what it promises at 5°F before counting on it alone through the winter.

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

    Most likely, yes. A standard heat pump's output falls short of its rating once it's below 40°F outside and often needs backup below about 35°F, and the average overnight low here from December through February is 17°F. A cold-climate model built to the ENERGY STAR spec keeps more of its capacity down to 5°F, but check what any unit you're considering is rated for before counting on it alone.

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

    Yes, and here that often makes sense. The furnace carries the house on the roughly 180 nights a year that drop to freezing or below, including the average winter low of 17°F, while the heat pump handles the milder stretches and the two months of cooling. You get one system for both jobs and the furnace's gas burner for the nights a standard heat pump struggles.

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

    No, a furnace runs cheaper here. At Colorado's average prices a furnace makes the same heat for $1.26 per 100,000 Btu against $1.99 for a heat pump, both built to the federal minimum. Gas is already what heats about two in three homes in El Paso County, which is part of why the furnace comes out ahead on cost here.

A person in dark clothing and a knit cap kneels on a concrete basement floor while working on piping at the top of a gray furnace, with ductwork, insulated walls, and a tool bag nearby.

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