DENVER — A hot topic during Colorado winters is the cost of heating a home.
For Denver resident Dan Esposito, his monthly bills have actually decreased over the past year. He attributes that decline to the heat pump.
Heat pumps are hailed as an efficient technology that improves indoor air quality and can reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They can both heat and cool a home, and rely upon electricity.
“As we clean up our electricity grid, the more that we are relying on electricity for our heating and cooling, the better off we're going to be over the long term," Esposito said. “It's really easy, and our bills have been lower... We still have hot water heating as a gas system, so we'll feel it a little bit, but space heating is the big impact. So being able to protect ourselves against what Xcel has said will be rising gas prices gives us a lot of comfort knowing that we'll make it through this winter without big bill impacts.”
Local
Heat pumps: Local and federal rebates help make them more affordable
In 2022, Esposito's furnace and swamp cooler broke, so he began considering a heat pump. His biggest reservation was the price.
“It is a little bit more expensive upfront, and we heard just, it's a really high quality system, and the maintenance is a lot easier," Esposito said. “This is an older home, so we're always a little bit worried about things, just from a safety standpoint, and so moving to electric equipment just seems like it would be better if we can make it possible.”
Ultimately, Esposito qualified for a heat pump rebate through the City of Denver, making the switch to electricity a reality for his home.
“It's been amazing, and the best compliment I can give it is that I really haven't thought about it," Esposito said. “We change the filter twice a year, and otherwise it just has kept our house at the temperature we need it year round. There haven't been any issues at all.”
The funding for the heat pump rebates comes from the Climate Protection Fund, which provides roughly $40 million a year to Denver communities in order to curb pollution. The Climate Protection Fund was created after Denver voters approved a sales tax in 2020, charging 2.5 cents for every $10 spent.
According to the Denver Office of Climate Action, Sustainability & Resiliency (CASR), nearly 2,000 rebates have been distributed since the program launched in 2023. The majority of those, 1,762, were residential heat pumps. 155 of the heat pumps went to commercial or multifamily dwellings.
Over the last two years, the heat pump rebate program has used approximately $8 million.
“These rebates are funding available for our community to help invest in clean energy technology, to help reduce their greenhouse gas impacts, and to both heat and cool their home, and for hot water," Jeff Tejral, the electrification manager at CASR, said. “A heat pump for your home is basically like an AC unit that can both heat and cool. It can heat by just having a reversing valve that can bring outside heat into your home, even in the wintertime."
The City of Denver's heat pump rebates are designed to cover the cost difference between replacing existing gas systems with a heat pump alternative. Before any rebates or tax credits, a cold climate heat pump used for space heating and cooling inside a residential home can range from $5,000 to $25,000 depending on the size of the home and complexity of the system, according to CASR.
“We don't have a date that they [the rebates] are going away right now. I think we are always evaluating programs to make sure that we are have the best use of city tax dollars and that we're allocating them correctly," Tejral said. “The emphasis is to try and change the market and to have heat pumps be at cost or lower cost than a traditional gas system. And when we get to that level, that's when we will start changing programs.”
Tejral said the city focuses on homes where a furnace has failed for the rebates.
One of the City of Denver's approved contractors must be selected in order to receive the rebates.
“Not all contractors are eligible to receive this [rebate]," Tejral said. “For the residential program, it's the contractor who gets the rebate, and then they pass that on through the actual invoice to the customer, and they need to be on the list of certified contractors to actually do that. So I would start at going to our website and looking there, looking at some of the information we provide, and then reaching out to one of the contractors listed there to actually get multiple quotes.”
Those with the CASR said Elephant Energy has installed hundreds of systems using Denver's rebate program.
The state of Colorado offers tax credits for heat pumps in the form of discounts upon installation. Any Colorado resident, business or other organization that works through a registered contractor can receive a portion of the tax credit as that discount — at least 33.33%.
Denver7 is committed to making a difference in our community by standing up for what's right, listening, lending a helping hand and following through on promises. See that work in action, in the videos above.
