How Heat Pumps Work

Despite the climate crisis some places (like Canada) are still building houses with fossil fuel based heating systems, and this needs to change. Gas companies and their planet-killing kin have used regulatory capture to ensure their desire to change the climate continues. However, their best efforts to force customers to use dead dino juice people are turning away from old style furnace for new high tech heat pumps.

Heat pumps sound like magic since they somehow extract heat from cold winter air. Thankfully, the Guardian has put together a nice visualization of how heat pumps work. The gif above is not from their english language site.

Whereas gas boilers burn gas to produce heat, heat pumps do something more complicated. Sometimes described as working like a “fridge in reverse”, they use a mixture of evaporation and condensation to transfer heat from outside to inside a building. In a cold winter, it can be hard to understand how these devices work.

See how heat pumps work.

In Cold Weather, Heat Pumps Outperform Fossil Fuel Furnaces

AI generated image of energy efficient home

If you don’t already have a heat pump then you’re going to want one ASAP. These machines that act as heaters in the winter and air conditioning in the summer are already more efficient than traditional AC units. Now, the current version of heat pumps even outperform fossil fuel furnaces in the cold of winter. At their core heat pumps transfer heat from one space to the next which means they can be anywhere from 200-500% efficient compared to the paltry 98& efficiency of a planet-killing fossil fuel burning fossil. If you own a home then you really should get a heat pump because we need to stop burning fossil fuels as soon as possible.

Efficiency measurements don’t measure comfort, explained Gibb, but he said there are consumer surveys showing those who use heat pumps fare well in cold temperatures. A 2022 consumer analysis in Europe found 81 per cent of respondents said their comfort improved after installing a heat pump. Another study conducted in New York and Massachusetts, which installed monitoring equipment in heat pump users’ homes, found 32 of the 42 people who participated said they were more comfortable post-heat pump.

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This Heat Pump Uses Sound

AI generated image of energy efficient home
Normal heat pumps make use of chemicals to modulate temperatures, in the future they may all use sound. A new French startup has announced they will sell a residential heat pump using acoustics. It’s not loud since the sound waves stay in the system to change the temperature, which also means the system can be quickly adjusted. Using acoustics for temperature control isn’t new (it’s used on the James Webb space telescope), this application of it in a residential system is novel.

Loyer said the heat pump can generate domestic water at up to 80 C. He claims that one of the key benefits of the acoustic heat pump, in comparison with traditional units using refrigerants, is its ability to reach very high or low temperatures.

“Traditional heat pumps use refrigerants with a temperature phase. They a have temperature limit, which is the temperature of the changing phase from liquid to gas of the refrigerant,” said Loyer. “In our core, the helium stays in gas form. Because helium remains a gas until -200 C, we can achieve higher temperatures inside our heat pump core.”

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Pump Up The Heat Pumps

Too many homes use dead dino juice for heat, and we need to get every home to stop burning the remains of extinct species if we’re going avert catastrophic climate change. The good news is that we can easily do this by getting rid of gas burning furnaces and replacing them with heat pumps. The video above explains how and why heat pumps are so efficient, the article below answers common questions about them.

In terms of cost, it may take a homeowner about a decade to recoup the price of a heat pump through savings from not using fossil fuels.

“But if you’re getting rebates…. it’s going to take a lot less of time to get your money back out of it,” Cheriex said.

Peter Sundberg, executive director of City Green, says those interested in installing a heat pump may end up on a wait list. In the interim, he says, homeowners can focus on upgrades to insulation and windows to make their home more energy efficient.

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Insulation is Better Than Oil

tree with climate knowledge

Insulation is a boring solution to the deadly consumption of oil inside your home. If you have a gas furnace or other fossil fuel heater then you can start reducing your consumption of the dead dino juice by better insulating your home. You can also go a step further and replace planet-killing heating solutions with a heat pump.

In the United Kingdom a simple policy change to encourage homeowners improve their insulation and/or install heat pumps can eliminate the need for Russian gas. The time to this is right now so it cuts off the market desire for oil from a state waging war on its neighbour.

If you’re a homeowner then improve your insulation and get off of gas.

An analysis by the think tank notes concludes that the deployment of insulation and electric heat pumps in 6.5 million homes by 2027 could reduce UK gas demand by four per cent, which is roughly equivalent to UK imports of Russian gas.

By enabling citizens to use less gas to heat their homes, a policy focused on heat pumps and insulation could also curb energy bills and protect millions of households from volatile international gas prices, it said.

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