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How a heat pump works
221–230 of 332 posts
Re: How a heat pump works
#222Technology Connections has a good video on heat pumps. (Actually several of them, I link the newest one.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFEHFsO-XSI
He does, but he omits a lot of important considerations that make heat pumps impractical for normal Americans.
If he touches on them, it's briefly - if at all, e.g.:
- More expensive units, and more expensive to run power wise. It's always difficult to get adoption of new technology that's "better" but more expensive to buy & repair - to the point where RoI may never happen.
- Power grid implications during very low/record low temps e.g. shortages/blackouts, likely worse than those in summer if heat pump uptake is widespread.
- With a heat pump, you -need- an alternative source of heat - since some days when it's particularly cold, they just won't work, or work very inefficiently. Plus, if the power goes out... you're definitely not powering a whole house heat pump with a small generator like you could a natural gas furnace.
Edit: FWIW, I'd researched this topic heavily & seriously considered getting a heat pump to pair with a solar power setup. For a number of reasons (chief among them: no return on investment before the end of the heat pump's expected service life), I will not be getting a heat pump any time soon. That may change if prices drop dramatically, but that seems unlikely given their increased mechanical/electrical complexity.
Re: How a heat pump works
#223Error establishing a database connection
The site is pretty new, I(admin) am not used to have lots of traffic. I will analyze what happened and chose better solution. I am sorry for the inconvenience !
Re: How a heat pump works
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just found this guy too. He answered a lot of questions I had about efficiency and use below freezing. https://youtu.be/fxEqVuiHhM0
I like his videos, but I don't trust his numbers in this one. He shows a COP of ~1 when it's 10 degrees out. These are the easiest possible conditions for the HP, and where all the specs show the highest COP. His graph showing the HP is running equal to a baseboard heater seems very suspect.
Are you thinking 10 degrees Celsius? I think all his numbers are Fahrenheit.
Re: How a heat pump works
#225Technology Connections has a good video on heat pumps. (Actually several of them, I link the newest one.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFEHFsO-XSI
He does, but he omits a lot of important considerations that make heat pumps impractical for normal Americans. If he touches on them, it's briefly - if at all, e.g.: - More expensive units, and more expensive to run power wise. It's always difficult to get adoption of new technology that's "better" but more expensive to buy & repair - to the point where RoI may never happen. - Power grid implications during very low/…
- Better than resistive electric heating for the grid. Gas is going away so this is a problem that has to be solved anyway.
- Economies or scale will solve the repair and maintenance burden... hell, it's not like a gas boiler is maintenance free...fucking things requiring serving every year and break down all the time in the UK.
- almost noone has a generator when the power goes out anyway. This is a very wealthy American perspective.
Re: How a heat pump works
#226The heat pumps are one of the means of heating (and air conditioning) in the heart of the news. What is their principle of operation. You can ask questions here if there are points to clarify in the course
I'd like to get a heat pump to replace my existing baseboard hot-water system (currently powered by an oil furnace) without converting to a heated air system. From what I've read, that's not quite feasible yet, since current systems can't produce a high enough temperature. What are the prospects of that technology becoming viable in the next few years?
I think this is possible. I will ask to a teacher of hvac-learning and come back to you asap. But basically you can heat water instead of air with a heat pump.
Re: How a heat pump works
#227Technology Connections has a good video on heat pumps. (Actually several of them, I link the newest one.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFEHFsO-XSI
I just found this guy too. He answered a lot of questions I had about efficiency and use below freezing. https://youtu.be/fxEqVuiHhM0
Can't recommend this channel enough, it's like the Captain Disillusion of home appliances. The video about hurricane lamps was the first I saw, and it solved questions I didn't know I had about their weird shapes.
Re: How a heat pump works
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
They are not more energy efficient than burning gas. Edit: since i am getting downvoted to oblivion, let me fight back here. I genuinely wished heat pumps would be more efficient and in theory they can be. I would love to not generate heat and just use the outside heat energy and compress it down into a smaller location. But compressing and decompressing is not an energy efficient task. It takes a lot of work. Mechan…
They literally are more efficient than burning gas, a good heat pump can do over 300% efficiency (KWs of heat in your house vs KWs of electricity used) while a furnace can only hope to get 100%. Even if the heat pump is fed from gas power plants (which burn gas with about 50-60% efficiency, more if the waste heat is reused), they are still using less gas for the same amount of heat than directly burning it.
If that where there would be no discussion about the switch to heat pumps. But it isn't. In old houses (bad insulation, old radiators) and edge cases ("winter") heat pump are not just inefficient they may not be able to heat the house at all (unless extremely oversized).
This is a huge problem in Europe where a house is expected to last a 100 years, in many areas much more.
Re: How a heat pump works
#229I'm getting an error when trying to load the page: > Error establishing a database connection https://web.archive.org/web/20230210134443/https://hvac-lear... The archive.org is pretty slow on this one as well, as it is an interactive site.
The website is new and not fit yet for such numbers of visit, so sometimes it does not render well pages. I(admin) still in the process of understanding how to build a nice website. I will analyze what happened and enhance it. I'm sorry for the inconvenience !
Re: How a heat pump works
#230I'm getting an error when trying to load the page: > Error establishing a database connection https://web.archive.org/web/20230210134443/https://hvac-lear... The archive.org is pretty slow on this one as well, as it is an interactive site.
OOM Killer strikes again - it always loves mysqld for some reason...
If you have advice for me, I'll take it ;) can exchange with HVAC courses