HVAC Installation in Cortez, CO
A new system here will heat from October through May and cool from July through August 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.
Cortez asks a lot of a heating and cooling system
Winter nights here average 19°F from December through February, and homes need heat from October clear through May. That's 8 months of the year the furnace or heat pump carries the load, so it has to hold up through a long stretch, not just a few cold snaps. Summer only asks for cooling in July and August, when afternoons average 84°F, but that swing between a 19°F low and an 84°F high is what a new system has to be sized for.
Montezuma County has seen 115 winter storms and 22 damaging wind events over the past ten years, and 13% of Colorado households lost power for at least a day in 2024. A new install is a chance to plan around that, whether that means how the system is set up to restart on its own or how it's protected against a hard freeze.
- 8 months
- October through May, your system heats
- 2 months
- July through August, it cools
- 19°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 84°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
- When should I replace my HVAC system?
- Once your furnace or air conditioner is old enough that it needs repairs more than once a year, replacement usually makes more sense than fixing it again. Watch for uneven heating between rooms, a furnace that runs longer to hit the same temperature, or an air conditioner that struggles on hot afternoons in July and August. Heat is needed here from October through May, so a furnace that fails mid-winter is a real problem, and it is worth replacing an aging one before it quits on a night near 19°F. A contractor can look at the age and condition of your system and tell you if repair still makes sense.
- Should I replace my furnace and air conditioner at the same time?
- If both are old, replacing them together is often the better plan, but it depends on the condition of each one. A furnace and air conditioner installed at different times can fall out of sync in age, so if one fails the other is often not far behind. Homes here run the furnace eight months of the year and the air conditioner only two, so the furnace does most of the work and tends to wear out first. A contractor can check both systems and tell you whether one is close enough to failing that replacing them together makes sense.
- What happens during an HVAC installation?
- A contractor removes the old furnace or air conditioner, or both, and sets the new equipment in its place, then connects it to the ductwork, gas or electric lines, and the thermostat. The new unit gets sized to the house rather than just matched to the old one, since the wrong size will short cycle or run constantly instead of heating or cooling evenly. Once it is connected, the contractor tests it, checks airflow through the ducts, and confirms the thermostat is controlling it correctly. For a furnace, that also means checking the venting, since exhaust has to clear the house safely.