Furnace Installation in Cañon City, CO
A new furnace here will run from September through May every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Fremont County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Nine months of heat a year in Cañon City
Your furnace runs from September through May here. Winter nights average 15°F, so it's not just a few cold snaps, it's a long stretch where the burner is working most days. A new furnace put in now has to carry that load for years, not just get through one winter.
Most homes in the area heat with gas, and any non-weatherized gas furnace built after November 2015 has to reach at least 80 percent AFUE by federal rule. That's the floor, not a feature, so ask what the unit you're getting actually rates. Fremont County has also logged 292 winter storms and 165 damaging wind events over the past ten years, and outages happen here. A furnace that won't restart on its own when the power comes back can leave a house cold overnight.
- 9 months
- September through May, your furnace is on duty
- 15°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 65%
- of homes here heat with gas, so most furnaces here burn gas
- 80% AFUE
- the federal minimum any new unit must meet
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A high-efficiency gas furnace would save about $100 a year to run in Fremont County compared with a gas furnace.
Estimates for a typical Fremont County home, from EIA household energy data, Colorado fuel prices and NOAA climate normals. Your home will differ.
- What size furnace does my house need?
- There's no single answer without a load calculation done on your actual house. A contractor figures this from your square footage, insulation, window count and layout, not square footage alone. Get it wrong and you either end up with a furnace that short-cycles or one that can't keep up on a 15°F night. With nine months of heating a year here, sizing it right matters more than it would somewhere the furnace barely runs.
- How do I know it's time to replace my furnace?
- Watch for it running longer to hit the same temperature, uneven heat between rooms, or repairs that keep coming back. A furnace cycling on and off more than it used to is losing efficiency somewhere inside it. If yours is old enough that parts are getting hard to find, that's another sign. Homes here need heat from September through May, so a furnace on its way out gets tested most of the year instead of just a few cold weeks.
- Is a high-efficiency furnace worth it?
- It depends on how much your furnace runs and how long you plan to stay in the house. Every new non-weatherized gas furnace sold since November 2015 has to reach at least 80 percent AFUE, so that's the baseline, not a special feature. Higher-efficiency models push past that number, and with heat needed nine months a year here, the difference shows up more than it would somewhere with a short winter. A contractor can walk you through the actual models and what each one costs installed.