Furnace Installation in Rifle, CO
A new furnace here will run from September through June every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Garfield County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Rifle asks a furnace to run almost year round
Ten months out of the year, homes in Rifle need heat. Winter nights average 16°F, and a furnace here is doing real work, not just taking the edge off a cold morning.
Most homes in Garfield County heat with gas, and any new furnace installed today has to reach at least 80 percent AFUE under the federal minimum. That standard exists because a furnace running this many months a year adds up fast, and the efficiency of the unit you install matters more here than it would somewhere with a short winter.
- 10 months
- September through June, your furnace is on duty
- 16°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 $110 a year to run in Garfield County compared with a gas furnace.
Estimates for a typical Garfield 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 a rule of thumb. A contractor measures your square footage, your insulation, your windows, and your ceiling height, then figures out how much heat your house loses on a cold night. With winter lows here averaging 16°F, that calculation matters more than it would in a milder climate. A furnace that's too big will short cycle, and one that's too small will run constantly and still fall behind.
- How do I know it's time to replace my furnace?
- If your furnace needs a repair every winter, or the repairs keep getting bigger, start pricing a replacement. Age matters too. Furnaces here run September through June, ten months a year, so they log far more hours than a furnace in a place with a short heating season. If parts are getting hard to find, or the heat exchanger is cracked, replacement is the safer choice over another repair.
- Is a high-efficiency furnace worth it?
- It depends on how long you plan to stay in the house and what you're paying to heat it now. Any furnace built after November 2015 has to reach at least 80 percent AFUE, so even a standard new furnace burns less gas than an old one. A high-efficiency furnace goes beyond that minimum, and with a ten-month heating season here, that gap in efficiency gets used a lot. A contractor can price a standard and a high-efficiency furnace against what your current one costs to run, so you can see the difference for your house.