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Heat pump vs furnace in Jefferson County, Colorado

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Heat pump or furnace, one form

Which costs less to run in Jefferson County?

An outdoor air conditioner condenser unit on a concrete pad beside a dark blue horizontal-siding wall at night, with conduit and a small electrical box on the wall and grass surrounding the pad.

Heat pump

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

A beige sheet-metal furnace stands on a concrete floor against a dark blue painted wall, with a metal flue pipe and a white PVC pipe rising from its top.

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

    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 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

    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 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.

  • 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 island with a white countertop holding a black induction cooktop, a stainless steel kettle, a blue mug, a bowl of lemons and a potted plant, with navy cabinets, a wood shelf with plants and books, cutting boards and a blue bowl in the background.

Where does a furnace shine?

  • Strong, steady heat in hard cold

    Winter nights here average 18°F, and a furnace puts out heat hot enough to keep up without straining. You get warm air fast, even on the coldest stretch of January.

    A blue two-story house with lit windows and a snow-covered roof at dusk, with a cleared paved walkway between deep snowbanks, a lamp post at left, and snow-laden conifers behind.

  • Runs on the gas most homes here already use

    Most homes in Jefferson County already have a gas line in, 72.2% heat with it. A furnace just uses what's already run to the house.

    Front porch steps with light blue painted railings on a clapboard house, beside a cleared sidewalk bordered by snow, with a dark blue porch on a neighboring house and bare trees in the background.

  • 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 a basement utility area with a furnace, ductwork, and wooden shelves holding storage bins, folded blue fabric, a potted plant, and a woven basket.

What winter here does to a heat pump

Your heat runs nine months a year here, September through May, and the overnight low over December through February averages 18°F. That number matters more than almost anything else in this decision.

A standard heat pump starts losing ground below 40°F. Its output falls below what it's rated for, and somewhere around 35°F it typically needs backup heat to make up the difference. Here, the average winter night is 18°F, well past both marks. Count the nights: about 155 a year fall at or below freezing, over half the nights the heat runs at all, and every one of them is colder than the point where a standard heat pump starts to struggle.

That doesn't mean the house goes cold. It means a standard heat pump is leaning on backup heat, usually electric resistance, on more nights than not. That backup heat is what makes a heat pump expensive to run here, more than the compressor itself.

A cold climate heat pump is a different claim. To earn that label, it has to prove it still makes at least 1.75 units of heat per unit of electricity at 5°F, and hold onto 70 percent of its 47°F capacity at that same temperature, checked by independent testing. In field tests of these units running in real homes through two winters, backup heat covered only a small share of the heating between 0°F and 35°F, and the units rarely ran on backup alone unless it was already below 0°F. Jefferson County only sees about 5 nights a year that cold. A cold climate model is built for the winter this county actually has. A standard one is not.

A two-story navy blue house with light blue trim, a covered front porch and snow-covered roof, flanked by snowy conifers with a snow-covered mountain ridge behind it under a clear blue sky.

What it costs, and what it's up against

At Colorado's current prices, a gas furnace heats your home for $1.26 per 100,000 Btu. A heat pump runs $1.99 for the same heat, built to the federal minimum with nothing added for backup. The furnace is the cheaper of the two to run, by at least 36 percent, and that gap doesn't account for the extra electricity a standard heat pump burns on cold nights running its backup heat.

Gas is also what most of the county already has. Utility gas heats close to three in four homes here; electricity heats about one in four. If your house already has a gas line run to a furnace, staying on gas means no new electrical work to size and run.

Cooling is a smaller piece of the year here, one month, July, with about 35 days a year reaching 90°F or hotter. A furnace has nothing to do with that. It only heats, so air conditioning is a separate system, bought, installed, and serviced on its own. A heat pump does both jobs in one system, which matters if your AC is also due for replacement.

So the choice comes down to what you're optimizing for. If the lowest running cost and the fuel most of the county already uses is what matters, a furnace wins here on both counts. If you want one system for heat and cooling and you're looking at a cold climate heat pump rather than a standard one, you're buying real cold-weather performance, not just the cheaper month-to-month bill.

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 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 not without help on the coldest nights. Below 40°F a conventional heat pump puts out less than its rated capacity, and below about 35°F it often leans on backup heat. With the average winter night here at 18°F, and about 155 nights a year at or below freezing, a heat pump alone will come up short some nights unless it has backup or carries the Cold Climate rating.

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

    Most of the winters here, yes. A standard heat pump's output starts falling short below 40°F and it often needs backup below about 35°F, and the average overnight low here in December, January and February is 18°F. A model with the ENERGY STAR Cold Climate mark holds up better in that range, but check the rating before you count 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 coldest nights, the 5 or so a year that hit 0°F, while the heat pump does the rest. That split means neither machine has to be built for the extremes it handles worst.

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

    No, a furnace runs cheaper here. The numbers come out to $1.99 per 100,000 Btu for a heat pump against $1.26 for a furnace, both at their federal minimum efficiency and Colorado's average fuel prices. Gas costs less per unit of heat here than electricity does, and that gap is why the furnace wins on running cost even though the heat pump can also cool the house in July.

A person in dark clothing and gray gloves crouches beside an outdoor air conditioning condenser unit on a concrete pad, attaching blue and red gauge hoses to its service valves, with a tool bag, wrenches and a yellow cordless drill on the mulch in the foreground.

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