Furnace Installation in Riverton, WY
A new furnace here will run from September through June every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Fremont County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Ten months of heat, and nights near 10 below zero
In Riverton, a furnace runs from September through June. That is ten months of the year the burner has to work, with winter nights averaging 10°F. A furnace sized for a milder place will run long hours here and still fall behind on the coldest nights.
Fremont County has logged 364 winter storms and 342 damaging wind events over the past ten years, and 8% of Wyoming households went at least 24 hours without power in 2024. A furnace built for this place has to hold up through that. Any new gas furnace installed today has to reach at least 80 percent AFUE, the federal minimum, so the fuel that gets burned actually heats the house.
- 10 months
- September through June, your furnace is on duty
- 10°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 50%
- 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 $140 a year to run in Fremont County compared with a gas furnace.
Estimates for a typical Fremont County home, from EIA household energy data, Wyoming 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 measures your walls, windows, insulation, and ceiling height, then factors in how cold it gets here, down to 10°F on a typical winter night, to figure out how much heat your house loses and how much the furnace needs to replace. A furnace that is too big cycles on and off too often, and one that is too small will run constantly and still not keep up on the coldest nights. Ask the contractor for the calculation itself, not just a number, so you know it was done for your house.
- How do I know it's time to replace my furnace?
- Watch for a furnace that struggles to keep the house warm, cycles on and off more than it used to, or needs a repair call more than once a season. Rising gas bills without a clear reason are another sign, since a furnace loses efficiency as it ages. Homes here need heat from September through June, so a furnace that is already falling behind will only get worse over ten months of use. If yours is old and starting to show more than one of these signs, have a contractor look at it before you're relying on it during a stretch of 10°F nights.
- Is a high-efficiency furnace worth it?
- It depends on how much your current furnace is costing you to run and how many years you expect to stay in the house. Every new non-weatherized gas furnace sold since November 2015 has to hit at least 80 percent AFUE, so even a standard replacement today burns less gas than an older unit did. A high-efficiency model goes beyond that minimum and pulls more heat out of the same amount of gas, which matters more in a place where the furnace runs nearly ten months a year. A contractor can walk through the options for your house and price out what each one involves.