Though the idea of residential HVAC technology or heat pump has been around in this country since the late 40’s, I’m still amazed by it.
Where I live, the heat pump is certainly the go to HVAC technology for HVAC cooling.
And the bonus is that we are able to also utilize the heat pump HVAC technology to heat our homes in the winter. This isn’t true for some of the northern climates in this country. But for us, the heat pump is more than adequate when it comes to heating our homes during our milder variety of winter weather. I know that when we get a cold snap where the temperatures fall close to freezing, our heat pump is more than equipped to handle heating our home. What’s fascinating is the fact that our heat pump can actually extract heat energy from what would be considered quite cool temperatures. And it does this using the same HVAC technology. Only for heating, the heat pump simply reverses the process. All the heat pump has to do is reverse the refrigerant flow to bring heat energy into the house. I can do this virtually on its own without supplemental heat source to temperatures of 40 degrees. And that just sort of blows my mind. Once the temperature drops below 40 degrees outside, the efficiency of the heat pump is diminished. And once it gets below 25 degrees, it’s not a very efficient way to heat a house. But for our purposes, the HVAC technology in the heat pump is just exactly what we need.