Heat pump vs. gas furnace in Broomfield, CO
Here in Broomfield, the honest answer is that a heat pump raises your annual running cost. $3,500 is what Broomfield would pay extra to go electric rather than replace the furnace and AC with the same again, once the $2,000 federal credit is applied. The heat pump would cost about $195 more a year to run than the furnace it replaces — a premium with no payback. There's no spin on that: Broomfield's numbers say wait.
The climate behind Broomfield's payback figure
Broomfield has a cold winter that leans hard on heating equipment — 5528 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base — and summers add a moderate cooling load, at 852 cooling degree days. The 99% winter design temperature here — the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average — is -5.4°F, against a record low of -20.6°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 2.57 for the recommended cold-climate unit. Below the 25°F line where a standard machine starts leaning on resistance backup, Broomfield sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. Source: NOAA station ERIE MUNICIPAL AIRPORT, 4.4 miles from Broomfield — the closest one on record.
Broomfield's running-cost comparison, in dollars
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 5,447 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $1,020 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 58 Mcf a year at 11.17 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $826 a year (electricity here runs 16.53¢/kWh). Looked at as a full purchase rather than an incremental one, payback here is longer than the 15-year equipment life, leaving the 15-year total $6,422 behind.
Electric resistance heat in Broomfield, compared
Not every home in Broomfield has gas service. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Broomfield's answer improves. About $1,476 a year comes back this way, enough that the 5.4-year payback clears the $8,000 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.
How Broomfield compares nationally
Among 3206 cities, Broomfield's winter puts it at rank 351 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 481 for population — 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the coldest third of the dataset, where climate does most of the work behind this figure.
What to do with this number in Broomfield
About 78,323 people live in Broomfield, Colorado, and every number on this page is what a contractor would actually work from when quoting a system here — the point isn't to replace that quote, it's to tell you whether to bother asking for one. Here, there's no cost penalty to waiting until your current furnace or AC actually needs replacing.
Line up a few local HVAC quotes before you decide.
Reading further on this page's numbers
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Broomfield's 2.57 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Broomfield's -5.4°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.