 Heat Pumps
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Heat Pumps are not easiest of items for the non-technical person to understand and that will encompass most people! Very simply, they are machines that take heat from one place and put it in another. Refrigerators, which are a good example of a heat pump, do this very successfully by taking heat out of the food storage compartment and expelling it out at the back. This is why your fridge is so cold on the inside and so warm at the back! Heat Pumps are certainly not new despite the fact that many people will never have heard of them.
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A Heat Pump for your home is best explained as a refrigerator working in reverse. It makes your home warm on the inside and cold on the outside. Because the outside is so vast, warming your home has an insignificant effect on the outside temperature.
Heat Pumps come in two basic forms, those that take heat from the air (Air Source Heat Pumps – ASHP’s) and those that take heat from the ground (Ground Source Heat Pumps – GSHP’s). Because they take their heat energy from the air or the ground, they don’t need much power to make them work and so they don’t cost nearly as much to run as conventional heating systems. In fact, for every 1kW of power you supply to the Heat Pump, it will provide 3 to 4kWs of heat energy to your home. With a traditional heating system, for every 1kW of energy you supply, you will be fortunate to see 0.9kW in return. Often it is as little as 0.65kW.
Heat Pumps offer a highly economic form of heating for your home compared with almost all traditional heating systems but especially against electricity, oil and LPG. They typically function at lower temperatures than conventional systems and are ideally suited to under floor heating. However they are commonly used with conventional radiators and circulating air systems too and offer a more even operation and living environment.
When sized and installed correctly, Heat Pumps will provide a highly cost effective solution for your heating requirements typically providing you with 3kW to 4kW of heat energy for every 1kW of electricity supplied to the pump. This output ratio cannot be matched by any traditional heating system; neither can the reduced output of harmful carbon emissions – up to 3 tonnes of carbon per year from your home alone! |
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