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Heat pump vs furnace in Logan County, Colorado

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Which costs less to run in Logan County?

A gray outdoor condenser unit with a top-mounted fan sits on a concrete pad beside a dark blue horizontal lap-sided wall, lit from above at night.

Heat pump

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

A beige gas furnace with a louvered upper panel stands on a concrete floor against a dark blue wall, with a metal flue pipe and gas and electrical lines running up beside it.

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?

  • 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 blue sofa and navy cushion in front of a large three-pane window overlooking green trees, with a rustic wood coffee table, woven rug, navy cabinetry and bookshelves, a wall lamp, and potted plants.

  • 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 patterned rug beside a navy wingback chair with a knit throw and open book, next to a lit floor lamp, a side table with a mug and small plant, gray built-in shelving, and a window showing snow outside.

  • No gas line, nothing burning in the house

    A heat pump runs on electricity alone. Nothing burns inside the house.

    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.

Where does a furnace shine?

  • 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 rectangular metal floor vent set into a hardwood floor near a white baseboard and dark cabinet, with a sheer curtain hanging above and a blue patterned rug at the lower right.

  • Runs on the gas most homes here already use

    Most homes in Logan County already have gas service, close to 6 in 10. If yours is one of them, a gas furnace uses a line that's already run to the house.

    A row of houses with covered porches, columns and railings along a snow-covered front yard and sidewalk, with a gas meter on a stone foundation and a person walking in the distance.

  • Proven, simple, easy to get serviced

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

    A gloved hand holds a pleated cardboard-framed air filter in a basement utility area with wooden shelving, storage bins, a wicker basket, and ductwork in the background.

What winter here does to a heat pump

Your winter low here averages 17°F, and that number matters more than any other for this choice. A standard heat pump starts losing heat output below 40°F, and below about 35°F it usually needs backup heat to keep up. Your average night is below both marks. This isn't a cold snap a few times a year, it's the normal overnight temperature for the eight months your heat runs.

Of the roughly 245 nights in that stretch, about 165 fall at or below freezing. That's better than half. On almost every night you run the furnace or heat pump, a standard heat pump is already working below the point where it performs the way its rating promises. It will still make heat. It just takes more electricity to do it, and on the coldest nights it needs help from a backup element to hold the house at temperature.

Only about 8 nights a year drop to 0°F or below, so the deep cold is rare here. A cold climate heat pump, the kind certified to hold most of its capacity down to 5°F, is built for exactly the range this county sits in. Field tests of that type of equipment 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. A standard heat pump doesn't carry that certification, and this county's winter is long enough and cold enough that the difference shows up on your utility bill, not just on the coldest night of the year.

A dark blue two-story house with white trim, a covered front porch and snow-covered roof stands in a snow-covered field with bare deciduous trees behind it under a pale blue sky.

What it costs to run, and what your neighbors chose

A gas furnace costs less to run here. At Colorado's average fuel prices, a furnace makes the same heat for $1.26 per 100,000 Btu against $1.99 for a heat pump at the federal minimum, which is at least 36% less. That gap is built on each machine's seasonal rating and doesn't add anything for backup heat on the coldest nights, so a standard heat pump's real cost here likely runs higher than the $1.99 figure, not lower.

Utility gas already heats close to three in five homes in Logan County, and bottled or tank gas heats another one in five, well above the statewide rate for propane. Electric heat is a little over one in five homes. If your house already has a gas line, a furnace runs on the fuel most of the county is already set up for.

The other side of the year is short. Cooling here runs about three months, June through August, against eight months of heat. A heat pump handles both heating and cooling in one system, no separate AC to install or maintain. A furnace only heats, so if you go that way you're pairing it with a separate air conditioner for those three months. Which one makes sense for your house comes down to whether you value the lower running cost of a furnace and AC pair, or having one system do both jobs, in a county where the heat runs more than twice as long as the cooling does.

Sources: NOAA nClimDiv · PNNL Building America guide · PNNL-37127 field study · ENERGY STAR product criteria · EIA SEDS 2024 · 10 CFR 430.32 · NOAA 1991–2020 seasonal normals · Census ACS 2020–2024

A small navy-blue house with white trim, a covered front porch, and a dormer window, surrounded by deep snow under a clear blue sky, with a bare tree at right and white neighboring houses on both sides.

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 the coldest nights. A standard heat pump's output falls below its rating once it's under 40°F outside, and here the overnight low sits at 17°F through December, January and February, with about 8 nights a year at 0°F or below. A cold climate model holds onto more of its capacity in that range, but some backup heat source still matters for those coldest nights.

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

    Most homes running a heat pump here will want one. A standard heat pump often needs backup once it drops below about 35°F, and about 165 nights a year here fall to freezing or colder. Field tests on cold climate heat pumps found backup only covers a small share of the heat in that range, and running on backup alone was rare above 0°F, so it's there for the hardest nights, not most of the season.

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

    Yes, that pairing is called a dual fuel system. The heat pump carries the heat down to some outdoor temperature, and the furnace takes over below that point, which fits a place where the average winter night is 17°F.

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

    No, a furnace costs less to run here. At Colorado's average fuel prices a furnace makes the same heat for $1.26 per 100,000 Btu against $1.99 for a heat pump, and gas already heats a little under three in five homes in the county.

A gloved worker in a dark blue uniform connects colored gauge hoses to the service valves of an outdoor air conditioning condenser unit beside blue lap siding, with an open tool bag and coiled hoses on the mulch in the foreground.

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