When it comes to cooling systems for your home, do you know all the options available? Air conditioners are a well-known option, and you are likely already familiar with how they work. But during the last few years, heat pumps have been gaining popularity, and you may have heard of them, but not quite understand how they differ from air conditioners. Do they both function equally? What features do they provide? In this article, we will try to brush away any doubts and answer some of the most common questions regarding heat pumps in contrast to air conditioners.
Conventional air conditioners and heat pumps essentially work using the same technology. That is, by taking heat from one space and releasing it outside, leaving the indoor room cooler and more comfortable. What makes heat pumps different is that they can reverse this process and, in simple terms, can take heat from the outside and release it indoors, providing heating for our indoor spaces.
- Air conditioning functions in a quite straightforward way
It uses a refrigerant that flows through a closed loop, and evaporates and condenses continually to transfer heat. The indoor unit consists of an evaporator coil, while the outdoor unit consists of a condenser, a compressor, and a fan. The heat inside our homes is transferred through the coils, and then dispersed outdoors through the exterior unit’s fan.
Regarding heat pumps, we can find different types, depending on the source they use, aerothermal heat pumps and geothermal heat pumps. Aerothermal heat pumps use air as their source and transfer heat from the surrounding air. On the other hand, geothermal heat pumps use heat from the ground. In this article, we will be focusing on aerothermal or air source heat pumps.
Air source heat pumps work much like conventional air conditioners, using a refrigerant that evaporates and condenses in a cyclic process to transfer heat from the inside to the outside. As a matter of fact, a heat pump generally has the same components as an air conditioner. But as we mentioned earlier, this process can be reversed, which is possible thanks to a reversing valve that changes the refrigerant’s direction through the coils. Heat pumps are able to collect heat from the outside, even during the colder months, and transfer it indoors to heat our home.
In the range of air source heat pumps, we can further distinguish another category, depending on how the heat is distributed into our home. As such, there are air-to-air heat pumps and air-to-water heat pumps. Here are their features:
- Air-to-air heat pumps are functionally more similar to conventional air conditioners. We can find them in similar setups as air conditioners: wall-mounted split, cassette type, and console type. Air-to-air heat pumps transfer heat present in the air and release it in the form of cooled or heated air.
- Air-to-water heat pumps transfer heat from the air into water through a piping system around the house. This type also allows domestic hot water to be stored and used for washing, bathing or showering. The indoor units of an air-to-water heat pump consist of radiators, radiant floors or fan coils, through which water circulates for heating and cooling.
Both conventional air conditioners and air-to-air source heat pumps can have specialized filters incorporated in the indoor units to improve indoor air quality.
