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Gas heats most homes in El Paso County, close to seven in ten. If your house already has a gas line run to it, a gas furnace is the straightforward replacement, and a contractor sizing the new one will look at your ductwork and your home's heat loss rather than just matching the old unit's output. Electricity heats about a quarter of homes here, usually through heat pumps or electric furnaces, and that's a different installation with different venting needs. A small share run on propane, which matters if you're outside the gas utility's service area. Worth checking which fuel your current system uses before you start comparing quotes, since that decides what the installation actually involves.
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
Natural gas ran $10.09 per million Btu in Colorado last year.
A standard furnace sized to your home's heat loss is the right call here, nothing bigger needed to justify the cost.
El Paso County falls under zone 5B, a cool climate zone where the furnace carries most of the load. Any non-weatherized gas furnace built from November 19, 2015 on has to hit at least 80 percent AFUE, and that's the floor here, not a feature to ask for. That floor is set to rise, with a much higher minimum taking effect for furnaces built a few years out. For now, an 80 percent unit is still legal and still common. Check the manufacture date on anything you're quoted, since the standard it has to meet depends on when it was built, not when it's installed.
El Paso County has seen 717 hail events and 223 winter storms over the past ten years. None of that calls for a bigger furnace or a higher-end one. It's a reason to have it installed by a licensed contractor who sizes it to your home's heat loss and gets the venting right, so it holds up through what the county actually sees.
Find a contractorNine months of heat and nights averaging 17 add up to a long run for one furnace. Getting the size right from the start matters more here than most places, since there's little downtime to make up for a unit that's working too hard or cycling too often. A contractor who sizes to your home's heat loss, not just the old unit's output, is doing that job properly. One who skips straight to matching the old number is guessing at a load that may not be the same as when that furnace went in.
A contractor should measure your home's heat loss room by room before naming a size. If a quote shows up fast with no questions about insulation, windows or square footage, they're matching the old furnace, not sizing the new one. The old unit might have been wrong from the day it was installed.
A furnace moves air through the ducts already in the house. If those ducts are too small or too leaky for the new unit's output, the furnace can run fine and the rooms still won't heat evenly. A contractor who checks duct size and seals before install is doing more than selling you a box.
Estimates for a typical El Paso County home, from EIA household energy data, Colorado fuel prices and NOAA climate normals. Your home will differ.
The old furnace still has to come out, and that's its own job, not an afterthought tacked onto the install. A gas unit has to be disconnected from the gas line properly, not just unplugged from the ducts, and the vent that ran from it needs to be capped or removed so it isn't left open to the outside. Whoever hauls it away should also be checking whether the chimney or vent pipe was shared with anything else in the house, like a water heater, because taking out the furnace can change how that vent drafts. None of this is hard, but it's work a contractor should walk you through before the new unit goes in, not explain afterward.
