Heat Pumps Provide Efficient Heating and Cooling

Efficient cooling and heating for your home can come from installing an air-source heat pump into your home; these are especially good for warm climate areas. These units deliver more heat compared to others, generating up to three times more heat energy than the electrical energy that it consumes. 

When it comes to rating the cooling efficiency, the acronym SEER is used and it stands for seasonal energy efficiency ratio. It is the total heat that is removed from conditional space in the annual cooling season, divided by the whole electrical energy consumed. Ratings for the compressor efficiency are done with HSPF, which stands for heating season performance factor. 

The most efficient heat pumps have SEERs of between 14 and 18. A SEER rating of 14 to 18 means the heat pump is adequate and more efficient than ones with a 6 rating. The old heat pumps were made with a SEER rating of around 6, and the newer ones come with a rating of around 12. This means that the older ones would use twice the energy to heat or cool your home as one of the new pumps. These facts are good reasons to purchase a new heat pump, if your home uses an older, outdated one now. 

Some of the factors below will help decide where to install air-source heat pumps. When picking the heat pump, be sure that it is one with a control for demand-defrost that will minimize the amount of defrost cycles that occur. This will reduce heat pump and supplementary energy use. 

Reverse Cycle Chillers

One of the best innovations within the heat pump industry is the invention of Reverse Cycle Chillers or sometimes simply referred to as RCCs. These air-source heat pumps offer an advantage of allowing the user a variety of cooling and heating distribution systems from forced air to radiant floor heating. 

Cold Climate Heat Pump

Currently, there is only one maker of this type of heat pump, called Cold Climate. It has a two-cylinder, two-speed compressor for the utmost in efficient operation. There is a back-up compressor that lets the system operate equally well even down to very low temperatures. A heat plate exchanger is situated to extend performance to well below zero. This plate is called an economizer, according to the company that manufactures it. After testing procedures, the results showed 60% more efficiency over the usual air-source heat pumps. 

Tips for Heat Pump Placement

If adding the heat pump to an existing electric furnace, the pump coil should be always placed on the upstream side of the unit for the most efficiency. When placing the outdoor unit, remember that they are fairly noisy and would be better placed away from windows to minimize the fan sounds that enter the home. There are also noise-absorbing bases that can be purchased to reduce motor noise from the unit. 

In addition, the outdoor unit should be placed out of high wind areas to avoid defrosting issues. A bush or fence can be strategically placed upwind from the coils to block the high wind and prevent damage. The bottom line when installing heat pumps is efficiency and money-saving on electric bills.