Heat pumps
Heat pumps – Geothermal, Ground Source and Air Source.
If you want to understand these the first thing you have to do is place a cup of hot water into your fridge close the door and ruminate on what happens to the heat when it cools.
The second thing you have to do is to visualise ripping your front door off and jamming your fridge freezer into the resultant aperture – facing outwards. At this point it helps if you have also ripped off the doors of your fridge freezer and plugged it in.
Now you are standing in the hall having caused hundreds of euros of damage to your house and one appliance – but you are closer to understanding the technology of heat pumps – have you got it yet?
The fridge is a heat pump – air to air – it moved heat from the inside to the outside (that’s a heat exchanger on the back) and you now have a home made air to air heat pump – not very powerful, but it works.
Heat pumps come in a few other flavours – less dramatic and more efficient – Air to water is a good option for coastal locations with low heating demand. Ground source is a more expensive but more efficient option where again, the demand is low. Deep well is the most expensive and only considered where there are space limitations – we rarely see an application where the additional costs are justified and would normally recommend wood pellet instead.
