What does an Air Source Heat Pump Do?
An air source heat pump in an environmentally friendly way of providing your home with low cost heating and hot water. As the name suggests, they convert heat in the air into hot water that can be used in your home’s central heating and to provide hot water for baths and showers.
Who can use an Air Source Heat Pump?
Air source heat pumps can be installed to any property. Obviously the larger the property, the larger the heat pump required. Generally an average sized house would need an 8kw heat pump.
Because they provide heat and water without the need for fossil fuels they are great for homes in remote areas where there isn’t a connection the gas mains. If you home is heated by LPG or oil that is stored in a tank outside, then a heat pump would be a great way to reduce your bills. It would also mean that you are no longer reliant on deliveries of fuel – no more late deliveries or fear of running out fuel. It also does away with the inconvenience of having a massive lorry on your property and the mess that it can cause. Very remote locations would also appreciate the fact that sometimes the deliveries can’t get though because of bad weather.
Homes that are powered by inefficient and expensive systems such as coal or electric storage heaters would also benefit from installing Air Source Heat Pumps. Your energy bills would go down significantly and you would be doing the environment a big favour too!
How do Air Source Heat Pumps Work?
Air source heat pumps work a bit like your fridge, but in reverse. They take heat out of the air and convert it into hot water. A box in your garden with a big fan inside sucks in air and blows it over an series of pipes that contain a special liquid. Much like in your fridge, this liquid is very cold and has a low boiling point. Blowing air over the pipes causes the temperature of the liquid to rise slightly and it boils into a gas.
Next this gas is compressed, which makes it very hot. If you’ve every had to pump up your car tyres with one of those little compressors that you get instead of a spare tyre these days then you will know how hot they get. That’s not electricity thats making it hot it’s the energy created by squeezing the air – that’s why the tube to the tyre gets hot too. Well this is the same principle – the gas is compressed and it warms up significantly.
This hot gas is then passed as quickly as possible to a special hot water tank. The pipe that carries the hot gas is curled up inside the hot water tank like a large version of the element in your kettle. In the same way, the water in the tank is heated up and is then sent to the radiators or a storage tank to be used for household hot water.
The gas is cooled and returns to its liquid state. It’s circulated back to the heat pump to be heated up again.
Here’s that process simplified:
- Fan blows air over pipes containing a refrigerant, warming it up
- The warmed refrigerant is compressed to make it really hot
- This hot gas is pumped through a hot water tank, heating up the water inside
How hot is the water from an Air Source Heat Pump?
Heat pumps work by providing a constant supply of hot water around 30 to 45º C in a very efficient way. In contrast, your standard gas central heating heats the water to around 75ºC, and in doing so uses a lot of energy. The temperature of the water from a heat pump is more than adequate to heat a home – it’s more of a constant build up rather than a quick blast to raise the temperature then switching it off to stop literally burning money.
Heat pumps work better with larger radiators or underfloor heating. Some people swap their radiators to make their heat pumps more efficient. Needless to say, people switching from electric storage heaters just install heat pump specific radiators.
How do they save me money?
No more gas bills!
Heat pumps run on electricity. They are very efficient and don’t use much power. By connecting one to your home’s electricity supply, you would see your electricity bills go up only slightly. However this small increase is massively offset by the fact that you wouldn’t have a gas bill. Anymore. Ever. No more sitting in 2 jumpers in the house because you are worried about the huge gas bill that would be coming in the spring.
Conclusion
Hopefully now you understand a little more about how air source heat pumps work and how they can help you save money.
