Furnace Installation in Fort Collins, CO
A new furnace here will run from September through June every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Larimer County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Ten months of heating, and winters that test the grid
Fort Collins homes need heat from September through June. That is ten months a year the furnace has to work, with winter nights averaging 15°F. A furnace here does not get much of a break before the next cold stretch starts.
Most homes in the area heat with gas, and any new furnace installed has to meet the federal minimum of 80 percent AFUE. Larimer County also sees its share of winter storms and damaging wind, and across Colorado, 13 percent of households lost power for at least 24 hours in 2024. A furnace that starts reliably and holds up through a hard winter matters more here than in places where the season is shorter and milder.
- 10 months
- September through June, your furnace is on duty
- 15°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 $110 a year to run in Larimer County compared with a gas furnace.
Estimates for a typical Larimer 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 comes from a load calculation, not the square footage of your house alone. A contractor measures your insulation, window area, ceiling height, and duct layout, then runs that through a Manual J calculation to find the number. A furnace that's too big will short cycle and wear out faster. One that's too small will run constantly and still leave rooms cold when it's 15°F outside. There's no shortcut that gets this right without someone measuring your house.
- How do I know it's time to replace my furnace?
- Watch for rooms that won't hold heat, a burner flame that looks yellow instead of blue, and repair calls that keep coming back for different reasons. Furnaces here run September through June, ten months of the year, so they log a lot of hours. If yours is near the end of its expected life and needs another repair, replacing it often makes more sense than fixing it again. A furnace that cycles on and off too fast, or one that can't keep up on the coldest nights, is telling you something too.
- Is a high-efficiency furnace worth it?
- It depends on how much you heat and how long you plan to stay in the house. Every new non-weatherized gas furnace sold since November 2015 has to hit at least 80 percent AFUE, so even a standard model today isn't wasteful. A high-efficiency furnace burns less gas to make the same heat than that baseline, and with 69.2 percent of homes here heating with gas and ten months of the year needing it, that difference adds up. High-efficiency models also vent through PVC pipe instead of a metal flue, which changes what an installer needs to run to your furnace location. A contractor can walk through the difference for your specific house and what it would take to install one.