When you think about cooling an overly hot house or room, you might not immediately think of your heat pump. But this piece of machinery is an integral part of your home’s infrastructure. In fact, by using similar technology to what’s in your refrigerator, your heat pump works in both warm and cool seasons.
Much more efficient than other heating and cooling technology, a heat pump works year-round to keep your home at a comfortable temperature. With only a small amount of energy, heat pumps change the temperatures in a given room by moving heated air past the refrigerant.
The strongest benefit of using a heat pump over a more common HVAC system is that you don’t have to purchase and install two separate systems — one to heat your place and another to cool it. The other benefit is an environmental one. A heat pump regulates temperature by moving heat from one area to another, not by burning fuel.
If you’re thinking about switching from an older system to a heat pump, you’ll definitely need a professional along the way. At Home Pros can put you in contact with trusted HVAC service professionals, right in your area.
What are heat pumps?
These ingenious pieces of technology are a great option if you’re looking for an efficient, green way to heat and cool your home, and they work best in moderate climates. There are many different kinds of heat pumps, but they generally work on the same principle: heat transfer.
Due to the laws of thermodynamics, heat flows naturally from higher temperature areas to those that have lower temperatures. A heat pump is a mechanism that uses this same principle but in reverse. That is, it pulls air out of lower temperature areas and pumps it into higher-temperature ones, using only a small amount of energy. A heat pump will take heat from a heat source, like the ground, and pump it into a heat sink, like your home. Here are a couple different types of heat pumps:
- Air-source heat pump: Using refrigerator coils much like the ones on the back of your fridge, an air-source heat pump pulls hot air out of the outdoor atmosphere, cools it by pulling it across the coils and pumping into your overheated rooms. A basic model includes the refrigerator coils, two fans, a reversing valve and a compressor. The key to the air source heat pump is the reversing valve, which changes the flow of the refrigerant so the system can work in the opposite way, the refrigerant absorbing excess heat to pump into your cold areas.
- Ground source heat pump: Also known as geothermal heat pumps, instead of swapping hot air for cooler or vice-versa, ground source heat pumps exchange the hot or colder air with the ground outside. Since the ground temperature is consistent throughout the year, these pumps are an excellent choice; although they are slightly more expensive to put in, the overall cost over the long term is much less than other systems. Water circulating through pipes deep in the ground collects heat, while the pump increases the heat before it pumps it into your home.
- Absorption heat pump: These types of heat pumps use geothermal-heated water, natural gas, solar power or propane instead of electricity. The difference between an air-source heat pump and an absorption heat pump is that, instead of refrigerant, absorption pumps use ammonia. Some of it gets very technical, but if you’re interested in an absorption heat pump, you need to know some of the ratings used to judge them. The coefficient of performance (or COP) should be over 1.2 for heating, and above 0.7 for cooling on an absorption heat pump.
There are other kinds of heat pumps, but these are the main three you are likely to encounter as a homeowner and consumer. If your home doesn’t have any ductwork, you can get a special kind of heat pump called a mini-split. Mini-split systems use a few interior units connected to an outdoor air compressor — so, if you‘re retrofitting a property, these can be ideal as the location of these components is flexible.
One of the more recent additions to the list of heat pumps is a cold climate heat pump, which has proven to be twice as energy efficient in places as frigid in the winter as Minnesota. A cold climate heat pump never wastes energy, as it detects the minimum amount of energy necessary to produce the desired temperature, and uses only that much.
Why you need a heat pump
One of the stronger benefits of a heat pump is that it works just as well as a humidifier. A heat pump doesn’t turn on and off as much as a gas furnace, although there isn’t the same sort of blast of heat. Some consumers aren’t used to the milder output of heat from a heat pump system, so this can take some getting used to.
A heat pump is year-round climate control and sometimes has a few other additions that can make the units more efficient.
- Dual-mode compressors and motors adjust higher or lower according to the heating and cooling level.
- Scroll compressors are quieter, more efficient, and last longer than traditional units.
- Desuperheater coil heats water by recycling some of the leftover heat. Water can also be heated by a RCC system in which a refrigerant heat reclaimer uses extra energy to heat water in mild winter conditions.
Heat pumps are excellent options for a climate control system in your home, as they are highly efficient and versatile. If you’re looking to put in a new system that will take care of both your heating and cooling needs, contact At Home Pros for the most reliable and respected home service professionals in your area.