heat pump
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About
A heat pump is a method of heating or cooling a volume of space by using electrical power to move heat-energy around instead of just generating heat (as in resistive heating. They are most commonly used for heating buildings (including residential homes), but they can also be used for water heaters and clothes-dryers.
Benefits
The two primary alternatives to heat-pumps are natural gas and radiant electric:
- Natural gas (basically methane) is a fossil-fuel, which requires constant extraction and releases greenhouse gases. Burning fuel also generates heat, which may itself contribute to global warming.
- Radiant electric, although 100% efficient, is still very expensive to run; heat-pumps can be significantly more than 100% efficient and essentially do not contribute to global warming, since they generate as much cooling as heat (just in different places -- inside vs. outside).
Countering Myths
There's a lot of misinformation about heat-pumps, largely because of how much the technology has improved since it was first commercially available.
- They do work in cold climates.
- They do not require special wiring or ducting (any more than an air conditioner does).
- They are not inherently super-expensive.
- ...unless you count geothermal/ground-source heat-pumping, but that's optional.