ASHP and GSHP Heat Pumps Made Simple
Heat Pumps are being used widely now to provide heat to buildings as well as swimming pools in a low cost way. A heat pump essentially behaves like AC but in reverse. Instead of cooling down your house and getting rid of excess heat via a radiator and external fan unit, a heat pump cools down the external air and pump that heat instead into your house/pool. The laws of energy conservation mean that you end up with more energy than you pay for because heat energy is pumped from the air (or ground) into your house along with the energy you use to drive the pump in the first place.
What this means is that if you compare the cost of energy provided by a heat pump with the unit cost of heat provided directly by a standard electric heater, you can usually achieve improvements of 300% or even more. For space heating then, heat pumps offer a highly cost effective solution which means that your overall energy costs can be cut with much of the heat energy you use actually being provided by the surrounding outside air or geothermally.
There are 2 main types of heat pump: ground source heat pumps which extract warmth from the ground via an array of underground pipes, and air source heat pumps which extract heat from air that is fanned over a heat exchanger with a low noise. ASHP pumps are usually easy to install and nowadays are quite quiet}. They operate even down to below zero temperatures.
GSHP or ground source heat pumps rely on a series of underground pipes which contain a pumped liquid that enters the pipes cold, having given up its heat to your home, and then warms up to the ground temperature as it flows through the system. Once warm again it is made to give up its heat via the heat pump compressor which operates just like a fridge.
Ground source heat pumps are more difficult to install than air source heat pumps but have the advantage of operating at slightly higher efficiencies during cold weather. The underground pipes can be laid vertically via a deep bore hole or horizontally and essentially take out goe thermal heat from the ground. This energy is always present at a low level but when combined with efficient heat pump technology it can be extracted and used to heat houses or pools very efficiently.
When selecting a heat pump you also need to select a good quality heat pump installer and it pays to use a firm that is professional qualified.
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