Troubleshooting Heat Pumps, What You Need To Know
Tuesday, February 24th, 2009
Heat Pumps: What You Need To Know
Why do most people seem so confused and bewildered about heat pumps? They have been around now for at least several decades, yet the technology behind them seems to mystify so many people. So, I decided to research this subject for myself in order to tell you how – in layman’s terms – these things work
The first thing I should deal with, I guess, is the name itself: heat pumps. Why are they called that? If they are pumps, then what are they ‘pumping?’ Well, the word pump is actually very appropriate (at least to my mind), as pumps move something – water, gas, oil – from one place (like the bottom of a well) to another place (like your sink). And that’s exactly what heat pumps do: they move, or ‘pump’ heat energy. If this is a hard concept for you to grasp, here’s an illustration. Imagine letting a cup of hot tea sit awhile to cool down. Now think about it: What really happened? Well, when a hot liquid cools, the heat energy passes from the hot liquid to the air surrounding it. In other words, heat was ‘pumped’ (moved) from one location to another.
You might not realize it, but even on the coldest day outside, the air contains some heat energy. The same is true for the ground beneath our feet: it has the capacity to store, or hold, heat energy. Heat pumps simply move, or ‘pump’ heat energy from one place to another. When you use a heat pump to heat or cool a room, you are making use of this basic fact of physics.
Let’s see this in action when you decide to cool a room: You install a heat pump, and it’s warm inside. A heat pump will circulate the air in the room, capture the heat energy that is there, and transfer that heat energy outside. Because heat energy has been taken out from the room, you will feel cooler.
What do you do in the winter? Simply reverse the whole process: use your heat pump to move heat energy from the outside to your rooms inside (even when it’s cold outside there’s heat energy there, remember?). You will feel warmer in that room as a result.
One very important not: heat pumps, by themselves, do not burn fuel to add heat to a cold room – they simply move it from someplace else. This means that a heat pump is not a furnace, which burns fuel. A heat pump is an energy-transferor, not an energy-producer.
Some heat pumps are called air-source heat pumps, so called because they use the air (surrounding the unit or from a separate unit outdoors) as their source for heating and cooling.
Other types of heat pumps are called Geothermal heat pumps – they draw heat energy from the ground outside (below the frost line) to heat, or pump excess heat energy into the ground to cool. They do this by transferring heat energy through a series of coils that are buried deep in the ground. You may not realize it but below a certain depth the temperature of the ground remains fairly constant year-round.
By: Jen Garvin
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Author: Jen Garvin writes about home improvement and Heat Pump Installation Read about the issues relating toground source heat pumps at her site today. Click here to get your own unique version of this article.
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One of the questions that most household dwell on is whether or not to install a heat system in the house. Of course, the comfort and safety of the family must always be the priority. Of course, deciding on the heat system also entails certain consequences that the household must prepare for.
The heat pump can also work best in a household constructed with the proper insulation. There are also energy-efficient elements that can be built in the house.
A heat pump draws in the warm air from the atmosphere to heat up your home. If the winter in your area is mild, you can use a heat pump as a sole source of heat. This eliminates other heating sources, thus reducing your heating bills.
The latest models of the heat pumps are equipped with excellent features to make them more enticing to the consumer. One of the best features that these pumps have is the energy efficiency and reliability. This will ensure that the pump will keep you hot, while saving on your energy bills. It will provide a more stable temperature because the temperature on the ground is much steadier than the air temperature. Other models are equipped with storage to store the excess air sucked in by the pump and is available for use when needed. You can use most of the heat pumps like a furnace to which a thermostat is fitted. This allows you to switch it on and off at a specific temperature.