Imagine that you took an air conditioner and flipped it around so that the hot coils were on the inside and the cold coils were on the outside. Then you would have a heater. It turns out that this heater works extremely well.
Rather than burning a fuel,
what it is doing is "moving heat." A heat pump is an air conditioner that contains a valve that lets it
switch between "air conditioner" and "heater." When the valve is switched one way, the heat pump
acts like an air conditioner, and when it is switched the other way it reverses the flow of Freon and acts like a
heater. Heat pumps can be extremely efficient in their use of energy. But one problem with most heat pumps is that
the coils in the outside air collect ice. The heat pump has to melt this ice periodically, so it switches itself
back to air conditioner mode to heat up the coils. To avoid pumping cold air into the house in air conditioner mode,
the heat pump also lights up burners or electric strip heaters to heat the cold air that the air conditioner is
pumping out. Once the ice is melted, heat pumps switch back to heating mode and turn off the burners.- Compressor: This increases the pressure of the refrigerant so that it will accept the maximum amount of heat from the air.
- Condenser: Coils that move heat to or from the outside air.
- Evaporator: Coils that move heat to or from the air inside the home.
- Air handler: Fan that blows the air into the ducts of the home. Components 1, 2, 3 and 4 are found in all standard air conditioners.
- Reversing valve:Changes the heat pump from air conditioning to heating, and vice versa. This is not part of the thermostat.
Click links below for information on Heat Pumps
