Colorado Heating Pros

Heat pump vs furnace in Montrose County, Colorado

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Which costs less to run in Montrose County?

A gray outdoor condenser unit with a top-mounted fan grille sits on a concrete pad beside a dark blue horizontal lap-siding wall at night, with a disconnect box and conduit on the wall above it.

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?

  • 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 cabinets, white marble-look counters and backsplash, a stainless steel kettle on a black cooktop under a range hood, a potted plant, bowl of lemons, wooden utensils and cutting board, and a light blue mug on a foreground island beside a sink.

  • 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.

    Living room with a white-framed sash window overlooking a green garden, a potted plant and books on a wooden bench below, a navy built-in bookcase at left, and a pale sofa with a navy knit throw and blue table lamp at right.

  • Steady, even comfort

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

    A navy armchair with a light blue throw and cushion holds an open book, beside a lit table lamp, mug and potted plant on a wooden side table, with a golden-coated dog sleeping on a patterned rug and bookshelves at left.

Where does a furnace shine?

  • Strong, steady heat in hard cold

    Nights here average 18°F through December, January and February. A furnace puts out hot air from the first cycle and keeps putting out that same heat no matter how cold it gets outside.

    A two-story house with a lit porch and glowing windows at dusk, with a shoveled path lined by small lanterns leading through deep snow to the front steps, and a large bare tree trunk at right.

  • Runs on the gas most homes here already use

    Most homes in Montrose County heat with utility gas already. If yours is one of them, a furnace just uses the line that'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

    The design is simple and well understood. That keeps service calls short.

    A gloved hand holds a white pleated air filter upright in a basement utility area, with wooden shelving holding storage bins and a basket on the left and furnace ductwork and piping on the right.

What an 18 degree winter asks of a heat pump

Your heat runs eight months a year here, October through May, and the overnight low averages 18°F across December, January and February. That is the test a heat pump has to pass in Montrose County. A standard heat pump puts out less than its rated heating capacity once it is below 40°F outside, and it often needs backup heat below about 35°F. An average winter night here is below both marks before you even get to a cold snap.

Of the roughly 245 nights the heat runs, about 160 drop to freezing or below, more than half the heating season. Only about 4 nights a year reach 0°F. So the strain on a heat pump here is not a few brutal nights. It is month after month sitting in the range where a standard heat pump is already working below its rating and leaning on backup heat to cover the rest.

There is a heat pump built for this. One carrying the ENERGY STAR Cold Climate label has to make at least 1.75 units of heat for every unit of electricity at 5°F and hold on to at least 70 percent of its 47°F heating capacity at that same temperature, checked by outside testing. A two winter field test of prototype cold-climate heat pumps in occupied homes found backup heat covered only a small share of what the house needed between 0°F and 35°F, and running on backup alone was rare even above 0°F. That is a different machine than the federal-minimum heat pump priced in the running-cost numbers above.

A two-story navy and light blue house with white trim, a covered porch and stone-base columns, surrounded by deep snow, snow-laden conifers, and snow-covered mountains under a clear blue sky.

What that means for your choice

On running cost, a gas furnace wins here: $1.26 per 100,000 Btu against $1.99 for a heat pump, at Colorado's gas and electricity prices. That heat pump number already assumes no backup heat added in, and this climate will call for backup on well over half the nights the heat is on. Utility gas already heats a little over three in five homes in Montrose County, so for most houses here a furnace runs on the fuel line already in the house.

A heat pump still has a real case, just not on running cost. It heats and cools from one system, and that matters more here than somewhere with a harder summer, since cooling only runs about two months and the afternoon high only reaches 90°F on about 35 days a year. It also means no gas line and nothing burning inside the house. If that matters more to you than the lower cost of running a furnace, look at the cold-climate version specifically. The federal-minimum heat pump priced in the comparison above is not built to hold its heat at an 18°F average low.

If your house already runs on gas, replacing a furnace with another furnace is the simpler path and the cheaper one to run through an eight-month heating season. A heat pump makes sense here when having one system do both jobs is worth more to you than the lower running cost of gas, and you are ready to pay for a cold-climate model rather than a standard one.

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

Snow-covered covered entry porch of a navy-sided house with heavy timber trusses, stone veneer walls, a light blue front door, stacked firewood, and wooden steps with railings, surrounded by snowy conifers.

Common questions about heat pumps and furnaces

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

    It can, but not at full strength on its own. Below about 35°F a standard heat pump usually needs backup heat, and the overnight low here averages 18°F through December, January and February, so most winter nights fall under that mark. A cold-climate model holds onto more of its capacity in that range, but a standard one will lean on backup heat through much of the season here.

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

    Yes. The average overnight low here is 18°F, well under the roughly 35°F mark where a standard heat pump's output starts to fall short and it needs another heat source to keep up. About 160 nights a year here drop to freezing or below, so that's not a rare cold snap, it's most of the heating season.

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

    Yes, and in Montrose County it solves the one weak spot of a heat pump. A standard heat pump's output falls below its rating once it's under 40°F outside, and the overnight low here averages 18°F all winter, so the furnace takes over on the nights the heat pump can't keep up on its own.

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

    No, a furnace costs less to run here. Gas runs $1.26 per 100,000 Btu of heat against $1.99 for a heat pump, both at Colorado's average fuel prices and each machine built to the federal minimum. That gap comes from the price of electricity against gas here, not from how hard either machine has to work.

A person's arm in a dark blue shirt reaches to adjust a round wall-mounted thermostat on a pale blue wall, with a living room containing a leather sofa, lamp and coffee table behind, and an open tool bag on the wood floor below.

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