Colorado Heating Pros

Heat pump vs furnace in Otero County, Colorado

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Serving Otero County homes

Which costs less to run in Otero County?

A gray outdoor condensing unit with a top-mounted fan grille sits on a concrete pad surrounded by gravel, against dark horizontal siding with a wall-mounted electrical disconnect box above it, lit at night.

Heat pump

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

A beige furnace with a louvered upper panel and metal flue pipe stands on a concrete basement floor beside pipes and ductwork, lit by a bare hanging bulb against a dark blue 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

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

    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.

  • 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.

Where does a furnace shine?

  • Strong, steady heat in hard cold

    Winter nights here average 19°F, and a furnace burns gas to push out hot air no matter how cold it gets outside. You get the same steady heat on the coldest night of January as you do in early December.

    A dark navy two-story house with white trim and lit windows at dusk, with deep snow banked around shrubs and a cleared brick walkway lined with glowing lanterns leading to the front door.

  • Runs on the gas most homes here already use

    Most homes in Otero County already have gas line run to them, close to eight in ten. If yours is one of them, a furnace just hooks into what's already there.

    A row of attached houses with porches, columns and painted railings along a sidewalk, with concrete front steps, exterior gas meters and piping, and snow on the ground.

  • Pairs with any central AC

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

    A metal floor vent set in a wood-plank floor near a window with sheer white and gray curtains, beside a dark side table holding a mug and a wicker basket of folded cloth.

Can a heat pump handle winter here

Your winters decide this more than anything else. Heat runs seven months a year in Otero County, October through April, and the overnight low averages 19°F across December, January and February. That's below the point where a standard heat pump starts to struggle.

A standard central heat pump puts out less than its rated heating capacity once it drops below 40°F outside, and often needs backup heat below about 35°F. Nineteen degrees is under both marks. So is every one of the roughly 160 nights a year here that fall to freezing or below. Those nights are most of the heating season, not the exception.

The cold snaps are rarer. About 6 nights a year reach 0°F or lower, a small slice of the 160 freezing nights. A standard heat pump leans hard on backup heat at that point. A cold climate model, the kind certified to make 1.75 units of heat per unit of electricity at 5°F and hold onto most of its capacity, is built for exactly those nights. Field tests of cold climate models found backup heat carried only a small share of the load between 0°F and 35°F, and running on backup alone was rare even above 0°F. The difference between a standard heat pump and a cold climate one matters a lot in a county where winter looks like this.

A dark blue single-story house with light blue shutters and a covered porch, surrounded by deep snow, with a shoveled path to the front steps and a snow-covered car parked at left.

What it costs to run, and what's already in the house

Set the cold aside and look at the bill. A gas furnace built to the federal minimum turns 80 percent of the gas it burns into heat, and at Colorado's gas price that comes to $1.26 per 100,000 Btu. A heat pump built to the federal minimum comes to $1.99 for the same heat, using Colorado's electricity price and nothing added for backup heat on the coldest nights. The furnace costs less to run here, and the gap would only widen on the nights a standard heat pump falls back on backup heat.

What's already running the house matters too. Utility gas heats 77.6% of homes in Otero County, a little under four in five. Electricity heats 13.3%, a little over one in ten. A furnace fits the gas line most homes here already have. A heat pump means running on electricity instead, or alongside it.

Summer is the smaller season here. Cooling runs about four months, June through September, and the afternoon hits 90°F or higher on about 80 days a year, under a quarter of the year. A heat pump heats and cools from one system. A furnace only heats, so it does nothing for those four months and a central air conditioner has to cover them. If the furnace is paired with AC anyway, that gap closes. What it comes down to in Otero County: a furnace costs less to run and matches the fuel most houses already have, while a heat pump's case rests on skipping the gas line and getting cooling built in, and it has to be a cold climate model to carry this county's winters.

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 two-story dark navy house with white trim, a covered front porch and a light blue front door stands in a snow-covered field beside bare trees under a clear sky.

Common questions about heat pumps and furnaces

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

    It can, but it works harder here than it would somewhere milder. The overnight low averages 19°F across December, January and February, well below the 40°F mark where a standard heat pump's output starts falling short of its rating. A cold-climate model, tested to hold most of its heat down to 5°F, handles that stretch with much less help from backup heat.

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

    With a standard heat pump, yes. Its heating efficiency drops once it's below about 35°F outside, and about 160 nights a year here fall at or below freezing, so backup heat is doing real work most of the heating season. A cold-climate heat pump needs much less of it, since field tests show backup heat covering only a small share of the output between 0°F and 35°F.

  • Will a heat pump keep my house cool enough here?

    Yes. A heat pump cools a house the same way a central air conditioner does, just running in reverse, and the afternoon only reaches 90°F or above on about 80 days a year here. Cooling isn't where a heat pump struggles in this county; winter is.

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

    Yes, and here that often makes more sense than running a heat pump alone. The furnace handles the nights that drop into the teens and below, which happens about 6 times a year, while the heat pump carries the milder stretch of the season. You get a gas line most homes here already have, paired with a system that can also cool the house in summer.

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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