The air conditioner works by removing hot air from the room to cool your home. Hot air flows through an evaporator that absorbs the heat changing to gas. It next flows through the compressor that raises the pressure of it condensing into a liquid. The heat pump on the other hand is used to heat the house. It can effectively use the outside air down to 35 degrees before having the back up electric heat strip help. The back up heat strip will end up coming on if there is a huge difference in temperature that you need. If the temperature outside is 50 and you set your home thermostat to 72, the back up heat strip will kick on to help heat the room faster. A heat pump can also pull heat out of a building and transfer it outside. The heat pump has a reverse valve that can be switched to take the heat and transfer it outside instead of pulling heated air into the home.
There are pros and cons to heat pumps.
*They save you money on your utilities
*Sometimes ineffective in a climate that is regularly falling below freezing
*Even in a cold climate, there’s enough heat outside to heat the house, the pump just might have to work harder sometimes
*Heat from the heat pump is not as intense as the heat from a gas furnace
*Heat from a heat pump distributes heat evenly throughout the house
*The heat pump shuts off less than a furnace
*Ground Source Heat Pumps are better dehumidifiers than air conditioners
Call Bartlett Heating and Air today for all your heating and cooling needs!
