Please explain heat pumps to me
davidmeiland
| Posted in Energy, Heating & Insulation on
Just got a set of drawings that call for a forced air system with an electric heat pump. I know these things sit outside on a slab and are connected with lines of some sort to an air handler. Honest to gawd, I have no idea how the durn things generate heat. I don’t believe they have a burner like a furnace, but I really don’t know. I’d much rather install a radiant system with tubing in the slab and Runtal radiators elsewhere…. but the plans say heat pump.
Replies
http://www.energyquest.ca.gov/how_it_works/air_conditioner.html
http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/homeandwork/homes/inside/heatandcool/central
http://www.geokiss.com/info-kit/survival.pdfhvac.html
(The last one loads very slowly)
heat pump does not generate heat. It removed the heat and by this it cools the air. heat will alway jump to cold. like an ice cube melting. the heat jump to the cold. the refrigerate, the cold pick up the heat turn to a gas and then get carried outside where the outside coil release the heat by compressing back into a liguid. a heat pump is a backward refrigerate unit. iy pick up the heat from outside and carried inside where its release by the coil. There is heat outside to close to minus 52 degrees but useable heat is around 20 degrees. do not think up heat astemp but as a energy. although its cold outside to you. the gases in the unit are colder than outside so some heat jumps to the unit. this is also why heat pumps are not that good in super cold climates.
it really hard to vision, just remember you create cold by removing heat.
They don't "generate" heat, they move it. An air conditioner transfers heat from the inside of a house to the air outside. A heat pump is just the same air conditioner running in reverse - it takes heat from the outside air, and transfers it indoors. There are limits to this process of course, so most heat pump systems need a backup gas furnace or electric heater for the really cold days.