Colorado Heating Pros

Heat pump vs furnace in Chaffee County, Colorado

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Serving Chaffee County homes

Which costs less to run in Chaffee 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 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?

  • Steady, even comfort

    It eases up and down with the weather. There are fewer swings between too warm and too cool.

    A dimly lit living room with a lit stone fireplace, a navy armchair holding an open book, a cushion and gray fringed throw, a brass table lamp and mug on a side table, and a golden retriever sleeping on a woven rug.

  • 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 beige sofa holding navy and light blue cushions and a fringed knit throw, beside a window overlooking a green garden, with a dark blue built-in bookshelf on the left and a wooden coffee table holding a mug, wooden tray and a vase of white flowers.

  • No gas line, nothing burning in the house

    There's no gas line to the unit and no flame anywhere in it. Carbon monoxide isn't part of the picture.

    Kitchen interior with white upper cabinets, navy lower cabinets, stainless range hood over a cooktop, white subway tile backsplash, and a light countertop island holding a bowl of lemons and a vase of white hydrangeas.

Where does a furnace shine?

  • Strong, steady heat in hard cold

    Winter nights here average 9°F, and a furnace puts out hot air from the first minute it fires. You get full heat right away, even on the coldest nights of the year.

    A two-story dark blue clapboard house with a white covered porch and lit windows at dusk, surrounded by deep snow, bare trees and small lit evergreens.

  • Pairs with any central AC

    The ductwork that delivers heat in winter delivers cool air in summer once an AC coil is added.

    A rectangular metal floor vent set into a wood floor near a window with sheer white curtains and a blue paneled door at right.

  • 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 pleated air filter in front of a furnace and ductwork, with a blue shelving unit holding folded towels, a plant and a wicker basket at right.

Why winter here decides this

Your winter low averages 9°F, and that is the number this choice turns on. A standard heat pump starts losing its rated output below 40°F, and below about 35°F it usually needs backup heat to keep up. Nine degrees is well past both marks. So is almost every cold night you get here.

Freezing or colder happens about 220 nights a year, over half the nights the heat runs at all. On every one of those nights, a standard heat pump is already working below the point where it puts out its full rating. About 30 nights a year drop to 0°F or below. That is not the rare, extreme case for a winter here. It is a month's worth of nights, most years.

This does not rule out a heat pump. It means the heat pump has to be the right kind, with real backup behind it. A unit built to the federal minimum will lean on that backup heat often this time of year. A cold-climate heat pump is built for this: to carry the ENERGY STAR Cold Climate label, it has to deliver 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, verified by a third party, not just claimed by the manufacturer. Field tests of cold-climate models back this up: 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 furnace does not have this problem. Its output does not fall off as it gets colder outside. Whatever it is rated for, it delivers, on the coldest night of the year the same as any other.

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What it costs to run, and what that means for your choice

At Colorado's current prices, running a furnace costs $1.26 per 100,000 Btu of heat. A heat pump built to the federal minimum costs $1.99 for the same heat. That gap holds all winter, every one of the roughly 220 freezing nights included, because it comes from the price of the fuel, not the weather. A furnace is the cheaper machine to run here.

A cold-climate heat pump will close some of that gap. It makes more heat per unit of electricity than the federal-minimum model the $1.99 is based on, especially on the cold nights that are normal here. It will not get past the plain fact that electricity costs Colorado households $43.72 per million Btu and natural gas costs $10.09. No efficiency gain erases a gap that wide by itself.

Gas is already how most homes here stay warm. Utility gas heats 44.8 percent of homes in the county, and propane heats another 26.4 percent. Electric heat covers 18 percent. If your house already has a gas line, a furnace uses what is already there. If it does not, bringing one in is its own cost and its own decision, separate from this one.

A heat pump earns its keep where summers run hot, since it heats and cools from the same system. Chaffee County has essentially no cooling season, no month warm enough to call for it. That argument carries little weight in a house that rarely needs air conditioning to begin with. If your house already has central air, a furnace pairs with it the same way it always has. If it does not, and you want cooling along with heat, a cold-climate heat pump is the one built to handle a winter like this 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

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.

Common questions about heat pumps and furnaces

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

    Yes, but check what it's rated to do at the temperatures you actually get. A standard heat pump puts out less than its rated heat below 40°F, and your winter lows here average 9°F. An ENERGY STAR Cold Climate model is built for this: to earn that label, it has to hold at least 70 percent of its warm-weather heating capacity down at 5°F.

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

    Most likely, yes. A standard heat pump often needs backup heat once it drops below about 35°F outside, and here that happens on more than half the nights of the year. The furnace or electric coil handling backup doesn't have to run constantly to matter. Field tests on cold-climate models 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.

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

    Yes, that's a dual-fuel setup, and it fits this climate well. The heat pump carries the heating load in milder weather, then the furnace takes over once temperatures drop low enough that the heat pump stops being efficient or can't keep up. With about 30 nights a year here reaching 0°F or below, keeping a gas furnace as backup means strong heat is there on the coldest nights without asking the heat pump to do a job it isn't built for.

  • What if my house heats with oil or propane?

    A heat pump replaces either one, and in this county that's a common swap since propane heats about one in four homes here. Propane ran $24.16 per million Btu in Colorado in 2024, well above both natural gas and the electricity a heat pump uses. Switching to a heat pump means checking the same cold-weather question as any home: what it's rated to deliver at your winter lows, and whether you want backup heat for the coldest nights.

A person in a dark blue shirt, jeans and cap works with gloved hands on overhead piping above a furnace and sheet-metal ductwork in a basement with painted concrete block walls, a blue door and a tool bag on the floor.

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