When you’re looking for a new home comfort system, you’ve probably already got a pretty good idea of the basic systems out there. There are furnaces, for heating, and central air conditioners, for cooling. For the most part, air conditioners and heaters are completely separate systems, although they do typically share the same blower fan to distribute air throughout your home.
There is, however, another option that uses the same components to heat the home as it does to cool them, and that’s the heat pump. Heat pumps actually use refrigeration for both heating and cooling, and you’ll see what’s so great about this in the guide below. For more information, contact our friendly team!
Why Refrigeration?
Heat pumps use refrigeration as part of the heating process. But most people associate refrigeration as something that generates cool air. Why would you want to have this in your heating system?
It turns out, there’s no scientific process of generating “cool” because cool is not an energy. Heat, however, is an energy, and it’s something that can be removed. The process of refrigeration, in air conditioning, simply involves moving heat from the inside air of your home to the outside so a coil in the system can cool down.
This heat removal process can work in reverse. In heat pumps, refrigeration can be used to remove heat from the outside air and bring that heat indoors. And this is highly efficient.
What Sets Heat Pumps Apart?
As it turns out, moving heat from place to place requires far less energy than generating heat. This makes it one of the most efficient heaters on the market. Its efficient design results in low-cost air conditioning as well (especially when you choose a system with a high SEER).
Because of it is heating and cooling in one, a heat pump does cost more than a standard central air conditioner. But this makes sense! After all, you’re getting heating and cooling all-in-one. The energy savings could quickly offset the cost in a few years!
Mack Morris Heating & Air Conditioning offers heat pump services in Charlottesville, VA. Contact us today!