Furnace Installation in Cortez, CO
A new furnace here will run from October through May every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Montezuma County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Eight months of heat, down to 19 degrees
Cortez homes run the furnace October through May, eight months of the year. Winter nights average 19°F, so the unit you install has to hold up to a long season and real cold, not just take the edge off a few weeks.
Power here does not always stay on. Montezuma County has logged 115 winter storms and 22 damaging wind events over the past ten years, and across Colorado 13% of households lost power for 24 hours or more in 2024. A new furnace should be sized for your home now, not matched to whatever was there before, so it keeps up on the coldest nights and comes back on on its own when the power does. If it runs on gas and is newly built, federal rules require it to reach at least 80 percent AFUE.
- 8 months
- October through May, your furnace is on duty
- 19°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 80% AFUE
- the federal minimum any new unit must meet
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A high-efficiency gas furnace would save about $80 a year to run in Montezuma County compared with a gas furnace.
Estimates for a typical Montezuma 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?
- The right size depends on your square footage, your insulation, your ceiling height, and how many windows you have, so it takes a load calculation to get a real number. A furnace that's too big will short cycle and wear out its parts faster. One that's too small will run constantly and still not keep up when it's 19°F outside. A contractor can walk through the house and size it correctly rather than going off the old unit's rating.
- How do I know it's time to replace my furnace?
- If your furnace is struggling to keep the house warm, cycling on and off more than it used to, or needing repairs every winter, it's time to start looking at replacement. Age matters too. Furnaces here run eight months a year, October through May, which puts more hours on the unit each year than in milder climates. If yours is old enough that a repair costs a real fraction of a new unit, replacing it makes more sense than patching it again.
- Is a high-efficiency furnace worth it?
- It depends on how many hours a year your furnace runs, and here that's eight months, October through May, with winter nights averaging 19°F. Any new non-weatherized gas furnace has to hit at least 80 percent AFUE by law, so the question is really whether to go higher than that. A furnace that runs this much of the year has more chances to make up the difference than one that only runs a few weeks. A contractor can look at your specific setup and tell you where that line falls for your house.