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
31–40 of 406 posts
Re: Heat Pumps – The Well-Tempered Future of A/Cs
#32Re: Heat Pumps – The Well-Tempered Future of A/Cs
#33I 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).
Old homes tend to not have any insulation. Parts of my house have modern insulation due to renovations/additions but other parts not so much. I wouldn't swap out the original windows and glass on the facade, for instance. And insulating it would probably be a destructive action as you need proper vapor barriers for insulation to not rot your home.
Re: Heat Pumps – The Well-Tempered Future of A/Cs
#34Swamp coolers are massively underutilized as well. The vast majority of residential cooling in all but the most humid climates can be done with nothing but a fan and some cold water; no compressed gases necessary.
Re: Heat Pumps – The Well-Tempered Future of A/Cs
#35Well 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 would imagine solar panels would be a good investment in a climate like this.
Re: Heat Pumps – The Well-Tempered Future of A/Cs
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Half of Phoenix vs A person in Portland. It seems like there’s an important scale issue there. So the risk isn’t really the same everywhere.
Good point on the scale. However, Phoenix is also a retirement destination so you're looking at a larger portion of the population being susceptible to heat waves.
Re: Heat Pumps – The Well-Tempered Future of A/Cs
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but typically “heat pump” is used to mean it can provide heating too, whereas standard “A/C” is a “one-way” heat pump that only provides cooling.
I always went with this description too, though oddly a "heat pump water heater" only works one direction, yet "heat pump" is still in its name.
all heat pumps work in one direction. You can't move cold around with any mechanism. Only heat can be moved. The difference is residential "heat pumps" just have a set of reversing valves so you can move heat from outdoors to indoors.
Re: Heat Pumps – The Well-Tempered Future of A/Cs
#38Isnt 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.
It's not just buzz. It's more efficient than resistive heating and modern units have better performance in cold temps. Hence the push to promote them. The downside is that you have added complexity driving up installation costs and reliability down.
Re: Heat Pumps – The Well-Tempered Future of A/Cs
#39Isnt 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.
Why put renewable in quotes? Because it isn’t 100%?
Re: Heat Pumps – The Well-Tempered Future of A/Cs
#40Isnt any a/c a heat pump though?
Same principal. But an aircon pumps the air over a radiator cooling/heating it, with a fan. Heat pumps rely on radiators in the room to cool/heat the ambient air generally.