Heat Pumps: What's The Big Mystery?

You know, it simply amazes me how modern technology not only scares most people, it confuses them as well. Having learned a thing or two about the ubiquitous heat pump, I thought I'd share some of these insights, and perhaps remove some of the mystery about how they operate.

First of all let's start with the name: heat pumps. Just what exactly do they 'pump?' Well, to my mind the word pump suggests something that is being pumped, something that is moving, or being moved - and that's just what heat pumps do: they move, or 'pump' heat energy. I'd like to give you an illustration of what it's like to have heat 'moving', and it's as close as your neighborhood coffee shop. When you buy that piping-hot beverage, and you can't drink it, what can you do? Well, you can just let it sit for a few minutes to cool down. But what really happened? Well, what actually happened is that the heat energy from the hot coffee escaped - it transferred - from the coffee and went into the air surrounding it. In other words, heat was 'pumped' from one location to another. Simple!

Perhaps you never learned this in school, but even on the very coldest of winter days, there is heat energy present in the air. The same thing is true for the ground we walk on: it has the capacity to hold a lot of heat energy. Heat pumps simply move, or 'pump' heat energy from one place to another. When you have a hot room you can use a heat pump device to make it cooler, using this basic fact of physics.

So let's see a heat pump at work: you have a heat pump installed. It's summertime, and your room is hot. A heat pump will circulate the air in the room, draw off some of the heat energy and transfer that heat energy outside. Because heat energy has been taken out from the room, you feel cooler.

In the wintertime we can just reverse the process: heat energy from outside is moved - 'pumped' to one or more rooms inside (even when it's cold outside there's heat energy available, remember?). You will feel warmer in that room as a result.

It's important to note that heat pumps, by themselves, do not actually use fuel to add heat energy to a room - they simply move it from place to place. This makes any heat pump different from a traditional furnace. Furnaces heat a room by burning fuel (gas, oil, electric) to add the necessary heat, whereas a heat pump simply gets it from another location.

Some heat pumps, called air-source heat pumps, capture heat (for heating) from the surrounding air. To cool, they simply draw it off and expel it into the air. They may draw heat energy directly from the air that surrounds the heating unit, or they might have a separate unit outside that captures and funnels the heat energy to the inside unit for dispersion throughout your home.

Other types of heat pumps are called Geothermal heat pumps, as these units draw heat energy from the ground to heat, or pump excess heat energy into the ground to cool. They utilize a system of coils that are buried in the ground. These units work because below a certain depth the temperature of the ground does not change much - no matter what the season of the year.

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Author: Jen Garvin writes about home repair and Heat Pump Installation Read about the issues relating toHeat Pump Problems at her site today.