Furnace Installation in Thornton, CO
A new furnace here will run from October through May every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Adams County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Thornton asks a lot of a furnace
Winter nights here average 16°F, and that is the low a new furnace has to answer to, night after night, from October through May. That is eight months of the year the burner is doing real work, not just taking the edge off a cold morning.
Most homes in the area heat with gas, so the furnace carries the load through the coldest stretch of the year without much help from anything else. Any non-weatherized gas furnace built since November 2015 has to hit at least 80 percent AFUE, and that is the floor to expect from a new install, not a feature to ask for. Adams County has also seen 50 winter storms and 85 damaging wind events over the past ten years, the kind of weather that knocks out power along with the heat. Statewide, 13 percent of households lost power for at least 24 hours in 2024, which matters if the furnace depends on electricity to start and run.
- 8 months
- October through May, your furnace is on duty
- 16°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 Adams County compared with a gas furnace.
Estimates for a typical Adams 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 works through your insulation, window count, ceiling height, and how the place is laid out room by room. With winter lows here averaging 16°F, an undersized furnace will run constantly and still fall short, and an oversized one will short cycle and wear out early. Ask for the load calculation in writing rather than a guess based on the last furnace that was in there.
- How do I know it's time to replace my furnace?
- Age matters, and so does how the furnace is behaving right now. Watch for uneven heat between rooms, a burner flame that looks yellow instead of blue, or a rise in gas bills with no other explanation. Homes here need heat from October through May, so a furnace that struggles even one of those months is worth having looked at before it fails on a night near 16°F. A contractor can tell you whether what you're seeing is worth repairing or a sign the unit is done.
- Is a high-efficiency furnace worth it?
- It depends on how long you plan to stay in the house and how much you're heating. Every furnace made since November 2015 has to hit at least 80 percent AFUE, so the real choice is between that baseline and a high-efficiency unit rated well above it. With 8 months of heating season here, a more efficient furnace has more months of use to make the difference count than it would somewhere with a shorter winter. A contractor can run the numbers against your actual gas use and tell you where that lands for your house.