Heat pumps – Ideal for your home

There are many devices and appliances now available that can make you very comfortable in your home. The heat pump is one such electro mechanical unit that can maintain the room temperature at a certain point. The advantage with this unit is that it can be used to not only heat the room, but also to cool the room. It is thus a versatile unit that you can use in summer as well as in winter. In the summer, it absorbs heat from within your home, much like an air conditioner and throws it out. In winter months, it performs its job as a heater by absorbing heat from outside and throwing it into the house. It is paradoxical, but even during winter; the outside air has got heat content that can be utilized well by a unit like the heat pump.

The function is very simple. It uses the mechanical pump to transfer heat from one location to the other and these units are very effectively used in items of daily use such as freezers, coolers, refrigerators, air conditioners and many others.

The mechanical pump compresses and decompresses the coolant gases and thus raises the temperature of the air from a lower point to a higher point. You can gauge the efficacy of a heat pump from its COP or the coefficient of performance rating.

Heat pumps have the capacity to take heat from ground, air as well as water sources. For mild weather conditions, heat pumps that depend on air as a source of heat are ideal. Extreme climates call for heat pumps that utilize the heat content from the ground as this heat is at a fixed temperature. While both types are popular, the ground source ones are costlier to install and they also work more efficiently.
Other factors when choosing an heat pump are the power consumption, the topography of the house and the building material that has gone into the construction of the house.