What is a "heat pump" ?

You live in the land of swamp coolers so you can be forgiven I guess. In simple terms you could say it is a whole house AC that is running backwards. Making the outside colder and the inside warmer. They then run the other way in summer.

 

Your ac system does not add cold air. It removes the warm air from your house and releases it outside. Now a heat pump does the same in ac and reverses itself in winter.

 

I hope you are not correcting me because nowhere did I say that it is adding cold air. I said the same thing you did in a slightly different way.

 

Heat pumps are more numerous in the south where the climate is a little more temperate. We have a heat pump here is s. Indiana, and I think we are too far north for it to be very efficient (gets too cold!) that's why we have a air handler that also doubles as a propane-fueled furnace when the temp drops below 28 F or so. All-in-all, kinda expensive (to run) set up for us. I spent $900 in propane alone last year. That's why am looking to purchase my first woodstove this spring to offset some of that.

 

Places out east will also call a furnace, boiler, radiator, and others a "heat pump." It can be a regional dialect difference in addition to the great examples above.

 

Good point. For me, heat pump is referring to the condenser unit outside, then the air handler inside the house. (Goodman brand) I had this duel-fuel (propane) unit installed about five years ago, and Took advantage of the federal energy tax credits that were being offered at that time. My old heat pump was a unit with back-up electrical heat in the form of strips inside of the air handler, and you wanna talk about burning electricity! I remember a few winter electric bills well over $400 with that set-up!

 

Yes ^^^
To picture it even simpler, pull out a window unit AC, turn it around, and reinstall. Its now blowing the heat in and cold out.

 

Diesel without the tax.

 

Heat pumps are (mostly) just refrigerators. There are all types, but most HPs use Freon gas to carry heat from outside the house in, or inside the house out. They can be reversed. Imagine your refrigerator in an exterior wall of your house. If you face the door inside and leave it open, it will chill the house (A/C). If you face the door outside and leave it open, you will heat the house. It is really that simple. You are using a phase change of Freon gas from a liquid to a gas and gas back to a liquid in order to transfer heat in one direction or the other. Refrigerators, air conditioners, and heat pumps all work basically in the same way.

There are many types of HPs though. Problems arise in air to air HPs when it gets cold outside and the HP is being used for heat. They tend to ice up near freezing, and become pretty useless below freezing. So they have heating elements in them to work as an electric furnace when they alone cannot heat your home. This is the reason that air to air HPs work better in mild winter climate areas. They are only more efficient than electric heating when ambient air temps are high enough to extract energy effectively. For this reason ground water heat pumps (water to air) are used to extract heat from water pumped through pipes in the ground and this is used as a heat source instead of air. Some people call these geothermal HPs.

Swamp coolers can be as effective (or even more effective) than heat pumps. They are most efficient in dry locations like the US southwest. You pump warm air (or water) outside and through an open pool or panel that has water running over it. The running water gets warm and evaporates, taking heat energy with it. I worked in buildings in southern California that were cooled this way and it was highly effective. The cooling towers were massive though, about the size of a 2 car garage.

 

wildwest, no 2 heating oil is used in the north east in house furnaces. it is thicker like diesel so it needs to be kept warm or it gels, kerosene is thinned so it does not gel a lot in north east use for heating. if your tanks are outside, like a mobile or modular, you need kerosene below 0. degrees. If tank in basement, 8 foot basement are below frost lines here and stay about 58 to 62 without heat if done right you use no. 2 heating oil. I have heating oil in my house because propane (only certain area have natural gas lines) is so nuts in winter and if you rent the tank in my state only company that owns it can fill it. so you put more insulation in and use less propane they charge you more per gallon. with oil I own tanks can call 5 oil dealer and lowest price wins

 

Oil is the most expensive way to heat here, even with the price drop. I see oil trucks out here a lot, as well as LP (propane). Propane is cheaper by the gallon but it has less energy than heating oil by volume. Electric is cheaper here than oil because we have hydroelectric which keeps rates down around 10 cents a KWh. Oil tanks are almost always in basements here in older houses that have heating oil furnaces. My SIL switched her house to NG from oil and saves a ton of money. NG here is the cheapest as you can heat with. Only firewood is cheaper if you do not pay for the wood. My only options are electric furnace or wood. I burn wood.

Oil is about the same as gasoline, and is up and down, about $2.80 a gallon now. Electric is 10 cents a KwHr. Propane here is about $1.50 a gallon. Pellets are $180-200 a ton (Doug fir). Cordwood is about $250 for Doug fir and $300+ for oak, split, seasoned and delivered. NG is about $1 a therm. No coal available to buy here and no coal furnaces. By the Mbtu, the prices now with cheap oil are: Heating Oil: $31. Electric: $29. Propane: $21. Pellets: $17. Cordwood: $16 (if you buy the wood, I get my wood fro free which comes out to about $50 a cord in gas/saw money, so my cost is $3.25 a Mbtu). NG: $12.50.

 

stihlhead wow do we live in different worlds. on my electric 300kw bill is 75 dollars yeah taxes and fees and sevice included but a real price. gas is 2.50 a gallon fuel oil was 2.19 on Monday. propane is 3.59 delivered or I can get at TSC for 2.50. pellets are at least 265 ton but shortage limited to 6 bags a trip. NG pipeline runs 3/4 mile away but too much to bring here by far cheapest to use have it in rental house I will have to go look at bills for rates.

 

Got to love the heating oil and propane companies. Typically charging ya more per gallon for using less than x minimum for a given season.

 

Did I even quote you?? Relax.

 

wildest in the north east, we would refer to a heat pump as a geothermal, is this what you meant? in short if your well is deep enough over 450 feet you can run extra water lines in it. ground temps tranfer to water this accomplishes getting your house to a base level of 58 to 62 degrees farenheit. takes less energy to heat or cool from this temp. not sure how cooling you would need. it works best with radiant floor. a few companies are starting to redo concrete floor and add it in. basically you need depth of well to give water enough time to transfer heat. this is obviously an overview only. extremely efficient way of doing it up front costs depending on setup.