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Electricity in Colorado ran 14.92 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2024. A heat pump that moves heat efficiently instead of burning gas or running resistance coils makes that rate work in your favor rather than against you. The efficiency rating matters here more than it would somewhere with cheap power, because every point of it shows up on your bill every month the system runs. When you're comparing units for installation, ask what each one is rated for and how that rating was tested. A unit that costs a little more upfront but runs a little better earns that back at Colorado's rates, not somewhere else's.
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
Heat pumps here run heat from October through May, about eight months a year.
Have the install finished by September, so it's running on day one of the season, not partway through it.
Adams County falls under zone 5B, a cool, dry climate where heating carries most of the load. Any split-system heat pump installed here has to meet a federal minimum. That minimum is 14.3 SEER2 for cooling and 7.5 HSPF2 for heating, and it applies to units built since January 2023. The HSPF2 number is the one worth paying attention to in this climate, since the system spends more months heating than cooling. Units below that floor cannot go in as new installations, so every option you're comparing already clears it. A federal tax credit is available on qualifying installations, separate from whatever a utility might offer on top of it.
Power costs more here, so an efficient system pays you back on every bill.
Find a contractorAn installer prices the job around what it takes to put the system in, not just the unit sitting on the truck. A heat pump needs an outdoor unit and an indoor coil matched to work together, and the size has to fit the space, not just whatever model is on sale. If electric heat is replacing gas, the electrical panel may need to carry more load, and that work gets priced on its own. Line sets, a condensate drain, a pad for the outdoor unit, controls that tie into the thermostat. Each of those is part of the install. Ductwork matters too. A heat pump moves steadier, lower temperature air than a gas furnace does, and ducts sized for a furnace may need adjusting to carry that air the way the system is rated to. None of that shows up in the price of the unit by itself.
A contractor works out how much heat each room loses through its walls, windows and roof, then adds that up for the whole house. That calculation is what sizes the new system. Matching whatever was there before just carries forward someone else's guess, and that guess may have been wrong from the start.
A heat pump that's too big satisfies the thermostat fast and shuts off before it's pulled moisture out of the air or run long enough to heat evenly. One that's too small runs constantly and still can't keep up when it's coldest out. Either way the compressor cycles in a pattern it wasn't built for, and that shortens its life.
The rating on the label, SEER2 for cooling and HSPF2 for heating, comes from a lab test run under set conditions. It is not a promise about your actual bill. A higher number means the compressor moves more heat for less electricity across a full season of cycling on and off, not just at one temperature. Units with the same rating can still behave differently once installed, because the rating assumes the refrigerant charge is correct and the airflow across the coil matches what the unit was tested with. A unit charged wrong or starved for airflow will run below its rating no matter what the label says. The label tells you what the equipment is capable of. Whether it gets there depends on the ductwork, the charge, and the setup around it.
If the old system is a gas furnace, that furnace and its ductwork don't have to come out. A heat pump can be added alongside it, so the furnace kicks in on the coldest days while the heat pump carries the rest of the season. If the old system is a central air conditioner, the outdoor unit and indoor coil usually come out together, since a heat pump replaces both the AC and the furnace's job in one piece of equipment. An old condenser left in place without a matched coil doesn't help the new system run any better and just takes up space on the pad. Whatever comes out, refrigerant has to be recovered from it by law before it's disposed of, not vented into the air. A contractor handles that as part of the removal, not as a separate step you need to arrange.
