Furnace Installation in Colorado Springs, CO
A new furnace here will run from September through May every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers El Paso County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Nine months of heat, on nights near 17 degrees
Furnaces in Colorado Springs run from September through May, nine months out of the year. On winter nights that average 17°F, a furnace is not idling. It is working to keep the house warm for most of the year, not just a few cold weeks.
Most homes here heat with gas, and El Paso County has logged 223 winter storms and 324 damaging wind events over the past ten years. Storms like that knock out power, and in 2024, 13% of Colorado households went at least 24 hours without it. A furnace still needs electricity to run its blower and controls, even when gas is what heats the air. Any new furnace installed today has to meet a federal minimum of 80 percent AFUE, but in a place where the season runs this long and the weather turns hard this often, sizing it right and backing it up matters just as much as the rating on the label.
- 9 months
- September through May, your furnace is on duty
- 17°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 69%
- 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 $90 a year to run in El Paso County compared with a gas furnace.
Estimates for a typical El Paso 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?
- A contractor needs to run a load calculation on your house before anyone can answer that. Square footage alone does not tell you enough. Insulation, window count, ceiling height, and how much sun a wall gets all change the number. A furnace that is too big cycles on and off fast and never runs long enough to heat evenly. One that is too small runs constantly and still cannot keep up when it gets to 17 degrees outside. Get the calculation done rather than matching whatever size is already in there, especially if the old unit never quite kept the house warm.
- How do I know it's time to replace my furnace?
- Watch how the furnace behaves, not just how old it looks. Uneven heat between rooms, a furnace that runs longer than it used to, or repair bills that keep coming back are all signs. Heat is needed here nine months of the year, so a furnace in this area logs a lot of hours and that wear adds up faster than it would somewhere milder. A cracked heat exchanger is an automatic replacement, no question there. If a contractor tells you the exchanger is cracked, do not patch around it.
- Is a high-efficiency furnace worth it?
- It depends on how long you plan to stay in the house and what your current furnace costs to run, and a contractor can walk you through that math for your specific situation. What's true here is that heat runs from September through May, nine months a year, so a furnace here logs a lot more hours than one in a milder climate. Any furnace installed new today has to hit at least 80 percent AFUE by law, so the real choice is between that baseline and a higher-efficiency model above it. The more months a furnace runs, the more those efficiency points add up over its life.