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Las Animas County sees its share of rough weather. Winter storms, the kind that bring heavy snow, ice or blizzard conditions, hit the county 166 times between 2015 and 2024. Damaging wind came through 151 times in that same stretch, and hail fell 65 times. Eight tornadoes touched down too. That adds up to 390 severe weather events, and each one is a chance for a furnace or the power line feeding it to take a hit. Across Colorado, 13% of households lost power for a day or more in 2024. A furnace with a cracked cabinet or storm damage you can't see from the outside may still run for a while before it fails.
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
Your furnace runs about eight months a year here, October through May.
That long a stretch gives small problems time to turn into a breakdown on the coldest night.
Half the homes in Las Animas County were built in 1972 or earlier. A furnace that came with a house that age has likely been replaced once already, maybe twice, and whatever is running now may be on borrowed time. If a repair bill comes in high, it's worth asking the contractor how many years are left in the unit, not just what the fix costs today. A furnace near the end of its life tends to need more repairs, not fewer, and each one is a smaller version of the same question. Nothing about a home's age tells you what's inside its walls or ducts, but it does tell you how long that furnace has likely been doing the job.
A furnace that took a hit from hail or wind damage does not always fail right away. If a storm came through and the furnace or the line feeding it has been acting strange since, get it looked at now rather than waiting for a cold night to find out.
Find a contractorEight months of heat calls for a lot of cycles, and every storm on top of that is another jolt to a system already working. The wear doesn't always show itself as a breakdown. Sometimes it's a longer run time, a pilot light that won't hold, or a blower that kicks on louder than it used to. Get those looked at when you notice them instead of waiting for the unit to quit outright. A tech who sees the furnace now, while it's still running, has a much easier time finding the actual cause than one who gets called out after it's already dead on a cold morning.
A furnace that bangs when it starts is usually dealing with dirty burners, where gas builds up for a second before it lights. Rattling points to a loose panel or a blower wheel coming off balance. Screeching usually means a motor bearing is going. A furnace that used to run quiet and now doesn't is already telling you something.
A furnace that cycles on and off every few minutes, short cycling, is often overheating and shutting itself down before it finishes a heating cycle. One that runs long and steady but never quite warms the house may have a clogged filter choking airflow, or a heat exchanger that's cracked and tripping a safety switch. Either way, the furnace working harder than usual is the sign, not the thermostat setting.
Estimates for a typical Las Animas County home, compared with an older unit built to the previous federal minimum, from EIA household energy data, Colorado fuel prices and NOAA climate normals. Your home will differ.
Repair makes sense when one part has failed and the heat exchanger is sound.
Replacement makes sense when the heat exchanger is cracked or the furnace keeps needing parts.
A diagnostic visit starts before the panel comes off. The tech will ask what the furnace is doing, when it started, and whether it happens on every cycle or just some. Then the cover comes off and they watch it run through a full cycle, start to finish, because some problems only show up at ignition and others only show up once the blower kicks on. They'll check the flame, which should burn steady and blue, not yellow or flickering. They'll pull the filter and look at the pressure switches and the limit switch, since those are what shut a furnace down to protect it. If the burners are dirty or the flame sensor is coated, that often shows up right away. A cracked heat exchanger takes more work to confirm and may mean a camera run through the unit. By the end, the tech should be able to say what's failing and what it takes to fix it, not just that something is.
