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Heat pump vs furnace in La Plata County, Colorado

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For homes in La Plata County

Which costs less to run in La Plata County?

A gray outdoor condenser unit with a top-mounted fan grille sits on a concrete pad against dark horizontal lap siding, photographed at night with surrounding bare soil and leaf litter.

Heat pump

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

A beige two-panel furnace stands on a concrete basement floor against a dark blue wall, with galvanized ductwork and a flue pipe above it and metal gas piping to the left.

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 golden retriever sleeps on a cream shag rug in a dim living room with a lit wood stove, an armchair with a blue throw and open book, a lamp and mug on a side table, built-in bookshelves, and a window showing snowy evergreens.

  • 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 dark knit throw, a wooden coffee table with a bowl, books and a mug, a jute rug, wooden sideboard with a lamp and plants, and a large window with linen curtains showing green garden foliage.

  • 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.

    A stainless steel stovetop kettle sits on a black induction cooktop set into a white marble counter, with navy cabinets below, a white subway tile backsplash, a crock of wooden utensils, and blue hydrangeas in a glass vase near a window.

Where does a furnace shine?

  • Strong, steady heat in hard cold

    Winter nights here average 16°F. A furnace burns gas to make heat, so it puts out the same hot air at the vents no matter how far the temperature drops outside.

    A two-story dark blue house with white trim and lit windows at dusk, with snow on the roof and ground and a shoveled path lined with small lanterns leading to the front door.

  • Pairs with any central AC

    Most central air systems are built around a furnace. The two share the blower, the ducts and the thermostat.

    A metal floor vent set into a hardwood floor beside sheer white curtains billowing near a sunlit window.

  • 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 entry with a dark navy glass-paned door showing snowy trees outside, fur-trimmed boots on a jute mat, a wooden bench with a blue blanket and mug, hanging coats, pale blue cabinets, a sheer curtain, and a floor vent.

Winters here are long and cold

Your heat runs ten months a year here, September through June. That alone makes this a different decision than it would be somewhere the furnace sits idle half the year.

The average overnight low in December, January and February is 16 degrees. That's not an occasional dip. Over half the nights your heat is running, about 195 of them a year, the temperature falls to freezing or below. A standard heat pump starts losing ground before it even gets that cold. Below 40°F it puts out less than its rated capacity, and below about 35°F it typically needs backup heat to make up the difference. By 16 degrees, every one of those 195 freezing nights is colder than both marks.

That doesn't rule out a heat pump. It means the one you buy has to be built for this. The ENERGY STAR Cold Climate models are tested down to 5°F and have to hold onto most of their rated output there. A standard heat pump isn't built to that standard and will lean on backup heat more often here than in a milder place. Field testing on cold climate models found that even with winters like this, backup heat covered only a small share of the load between 0°F and 35°F, and running on backup alone was rare except on the roughly 10 nights a year that reach 0°F. The furnace side has no such split to think about. A gas furnace is built to put out its full rated heat regardless of how cold it gets outside, so the 16-degree average and the 195 freezing nights don't change what it delivers.

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

At Colorado's average prices, a gas furnace makes the same heat for less money. Natural gas runs $1.26 per 100,000 Btu here against $1.99 for a heat pump at the federal minimum efficiency, and that heat pump figure doesn't include whatever backup heat it burns on the coldest nights. A furnace has nothing to do for the two months a year the heat isn't on, since it has no cooling mode to fall back on.

Almost half the homes in the county, 47 percent, already heat with utility gas, and another quarter run on propane. Electricity heats about one in five homes here. If your house already has a gas line run to it, a furnace is working with what's already there. If it doesn't, bringing one in is a cost of its own that the running-cost numbers above don't include.

A heat pump's advantage shows up in summer, not winter. It's the one machine here that heats and cools, which matters less in a county where, by the numbers, there's essentially no month warm enough to call for air conditioning in the first place. A furnace only ever heats, so pairing it with central air means running two separate systems. Where a heat pump earns its keep here is in a house that wants one system for both, cold climate rated and sized for these winters, with no gas line to begin with. Where a furnace wins is everywhere cost and cold-weather output matter most, which for most houses in this county is most of the year.

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 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?

    Yes, but a standard heat pump struggles on the coldest nights here without help. Below 40°F it puts out less heat than its rating, and below about 35°F it often needs backup. A cold-climate model built to the ENERGY STAR Cold Climate mark holds up better, keeping at least 70 percent of its 47°F capacity at 5°F, and field testing of prototype cold-climate models found backup heat carried only a small share of the load between 0°F and 35°F, with running on backup alone rare even above 0°F.

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

    Most houses here need it. A standard heat pump's heat output falls short of its rating below 40°F, and it often needs backup below about 35°F. The overnight low here averages 16°F across December, January and February, and every one of the roughly 195 nights a year at or below freezing falls under both marks.

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

    Yes, and here it's a common setup. The furnace runs on the coldest nights when a heat pump needs help, and the heat pump carries the milder stretches on its own. With overnight lows averaging 16°F in December, January and February, and about 195 nights a year at or below freezing, your furnace would have real work to do alongside it.

  • What if my house heats with oil or propane?

    A heat pump still costs less to run than propane heat. Propane cost Colorado homes $24.16 per million Btu in 2024, well above natural gas at $10.09, and above electricity at $43.72 per million Btu too once you convert to the heat pump's $1.99 per 100,000 Btu figure. About one in four homes here heat with propane, so if yours is one of them, a heat pump would cost less than what you're running now, even though a gas furnace would cost less still if a gas line reaches your house.

A person in gloves kneels on gravel beside a gray outdoor air conditioning condenser on a concrete pad, working on its copper line connections, with wrenches and a screwdriver on a blue cloth and a tool bag nearby.

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