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Air-Source Heat Pumps
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An air-source heat pump works like any central air conditioner in the summer. If you walk up to the heat pump, it will look exactly like a central air conditioner. And like any air conditioner, it removes heat from the home and releases it outdoors, using the refrigeration system.
In the summer there is no difference in operation from any other central air conditioner. The difference is in the winter, when the heat pump reverses itself and becomes a heating system.
When you change the room thermostat from cooling to heating, the refrigeration system simply reverses itself and extracts heat from the outdoor air and releases that heat inside the home. In very basic terms, the cooling system is now heating your home.
What makes a heat pump different is its ability to extract heat from the outdoor air, which is why it is called an air-source heat pump, or more commonly called a heat pump.
The cooling coils located inside the furnace become cooling and heating coils, when a heat pump is installed. The outdoor heat pump or compressor section is what does the lion’s share of the heating, as it compresses and transfers (pumps) the heat into the furnace coil. Air blowing across the coil, is heated by the hot coils. The furnace fan blows or distributes the heated air throughout your home, like any other forced air heating system.
A heat pump is a combination of the outdoor compressor section, plus the indoor electric furnace and coil. In the extreme cold weather, some supplemental heat is needed to maintain the desired room temperature. The indoor thermostat will automatically sense the need for this supplemental heat and activate the electric furnace when needed.
Because it is cheaper to transfer heat from the outdoor air, than it is to produce that heat from burning gas, the heat pump is much cheaper to operate. It is important not confuse the need for supplemental heat with its efficiency. Yes, the heat pump may need some supplemental heat to maintain the desired room temperature, but even during those times, the heat being produced by the heat pump is very, very low cost. Even at zero degrees, the heat pump is still operating at over 200% efficiency.
Just like any other heating system, heat pumps are sold in various efficiency levels. The rating to look for is called the SEER number. That stands for Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio. The lowest efficiency model manufactured today is 13 SEER, which is the cheap builders model. At the high end of the range, some units now reach up to 17 or even 18 SEER.
It’s our recommendation that you install a 14 SEER (or higher) model. In addition to lowering the cost of heating, a 14 SEER heat pump will lower the cooling cost by as much as 40%. Since the heat pump is both a heating and cooling system, the small increase in installation cost will be recovered quickly from lower heating and cooling cost.