Isnt any a/c a heat pump though?
I have never really understood the difference between a heat pump and an A/C myself. Any expert care to explain it in layman's terms?
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Heat Pumps – The Well-Tempered Future of A/Cs
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Re: Heat Pumps – The Well-Tempered Future of A/Cs
#22Isnt any a/c a heat pump though?
I have never really understood the difference between a heat pump and an A/C myself. Any expert care to explain it in layman's terms?
The difference is whether you add a $20 of valves to let it run in reverse (and possibly some extra smarts to keep it from frosting up)
Re: Heat Pumps – The Well-Tempered Future of A/Cs
#23Isnt any a/c a heat pump though?
It's an industry term for mechanical equipment that can heat AND cool. One piece of equipment replaces your AC AND heat source.
Heat pumps in particular are getting a push from "green" initiatives because they only use electricity for fuel which can potentially be supplied by "renewable" sources.
ie; it's a buzz word.
Re: Heat Pumps – The Well-Tempered Future of A/Cs
#24Well this was an oddly terrifying introductory paragraph for an IEEE article: "... half of Phoenix residents are at risk of an emergency room visit or worse if their electricity fails during a future heat wave, according to a recent study. Air conditioning is what keeps people there comfortable—and alive—a growing fraction of the year. The extreme heat already kills hundreds of Phoenix-area residents every year, a nu…
I've only ever visited Phoenix but when I did it was mid July and being outside genuinely did not feel hospitable to human life. That statement doesn't surprise me at all. Unless you're employed in, I dunno, the solar power industry I really feel like you shouldn't be living there. It should be like living on an oil rig.
Re: Heat Pumps – The Well-Tempered Future of A/Cs
#25I have both HVAC and a ducted heatpump for one part of the home. The biggest issue with the heatpump is that in the climate I live in there are times of year where you may have the heat on in the morning and the AC in the afternoon. Or you may leave and when you return you want to change the temperature. A furnace and an AC can do this rapidly. A heatpump takes time. It's more of a trickle of climatized air than a bl…
If you have the heat on in the morning and AC in the afternoon, your home is horribly under-insulated (or you are trying to keep in way too small a temperature range).
Re: Heat Pumps – The Well-Tempered Future of A/Cs
#26I live in a colder climate where heat pumps are not popular. After talking with a number of HVAC people about this I was surprised to learn that despite being very similar to an AC system in principle, in practice converting an AC system into a heat pump system doesn't make economic sense--you end up just ripping one out and installing the other. I don't fully understand why this is the case, but I hope that there's…
The thing is (especially where I live) I'd still need a gas furnace. We regularly see -20F to -40F in the winter. While the 95% scenario sounds great, in practice still needing gas means we still need all the gas infrastructure. From my understanding natural gas burns pretty clean. The problem is leaks in infrastructure and drilling, which isn't going away because I buy a heat pump.
Re: Heat Pumps – The Well-Tempered Future of A/Cs
#27When my AC finally needs replacing I'm going heat pump, and then also ditching my gas water heater. The constant fees of a gas line are ridiculous at this point and any more electricity usage will be offset by the 9 months of the year I'd never turn on the heat.
Re: Heat Pumps – The Well-Tempered Future of A/Cs
#28Isnt any a/c a heat pump though?
I think the media has once again assigned a term their specific definition and created a meme out of it. I guess it makes sense if you have no preconceived notions of what a "heat pump" is. But yes, to anybody that knows an air conditioner is a type of heat pump, these articles read akin to "Personal cars create too many emissions. Companies have come up with an innovative way to reduce this problem: vehicles". (with the reader in the memestream of taking the generic term "vehicles" to mean only electric vehicles)
Trying to parse the mumbo jumbo, I think these articles are trying to point out and encourage the trend of designing new installations of cooling systems around cooling and heating, with a reversing valve and whatnot. Because it no longer makes sense to lean on a separate heating system that burns fossil fuels. But gosh I wish they would just come out and say this directly instead of beating around the bush as if "heat pumps" are some magical new invention.
Re: Heat Pumps – The Well-Tempered Future of A/Cs
#29Well this was an oddly terrifying introductory paragraph for an IEEE article: "... half of Phoenix residents are at risk of an emergency room visit or worse if their electricity fails during a future heat wave, according to a recent study. Air conditioning is what keeps people there comfortable—and alive—a growing fraction of the year. The extreme heat already kills hundreds of Phoenix-area residents every year, a nu…
Sure, but it can happen anywhere. I was just reading yesterday about a person who died in Portland of heat during the dome. Same with cold weather, if the gas/electric goes out during the winter. There's really only a few places one can live with moderate enough weather to avoid those scenarios.
what?
do you really not see a difference between a place where the event is much more likely to happen for a much longer % of the time than another place where the same event is much less likely to occur?
Re: Heat Pumps – The Well-Tempered Future of A/Cs
#30Well this was an oddly terrifying introductory paragraph for an IEEE article: "... half of Phoenix residents are at risk of an emergency room visit or worse if their electricity fails during a future heat wave, according to a recent study. Air conditioning is what keeps people there comfortable—and alive—a growing fraction of the year. The extreme heat already kills hundreds of Phoenix-area residents every year, a nu…
Time to start calling it Life Support Systems