Is a heat pump worth it in Northglenn?

In Northglenn, a heat pump would cost more to run each year than what you have now. $3,500 is what Northglenn 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. Running costs here land $157 a year HIGHER than the furnace it replaces, so that premium is never recovered. There's no spin on that: Northglenn's numbers say wait.

The climate behind Northglenn's payback figure

Degree days tell the story here: Northglenn racks up 4908 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, with 1015 cooling degree days on the cooling side. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: -5.8°F here (record low -11.2°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.56 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. Below the 25°F line where a standard machine starts leaning on resistance backup, Northglenn sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. These numbers come from ATCT ROCKY MOUNTAIN METRO, the closest NOAA station, 7.2 miles out.

Northglenn's running-cost comparison, in dollars

A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 4,855 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $946 a year on electricity. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 51 Mcf a year at 11.17 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $788 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 $5,857 behind.

Electric resistance heat in Northglenn, compared

Gas isn't universal in Northglenn — many houses run on electric heat already. Against electric-resistance heat — baseboard or an electric furnace, both 100% efficient but still just resistance — the case for switching gets stronger here. The saving here runs about $1,326 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 6 years.

How Northglenn compares nationally

Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Northglenn comes in at 851 for heating severity — 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset — and 1084 by population, where 1 is largest. That's the coldest third of the dataset, where climate does most of the work behind this figure.

Next step for 38,287 people in Northglenn

About 38,287 people live in Northglenn, 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.

More on how this number was built

The methodology guide walks through exactly how Northglenn's 2.56 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Northglenn's -5.8°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.