ASHP and GSHP Heat Pumps Made Easy
Heat Pumps are now being used widely to provide heat to buildings as well as pools in a cost effective way. A heat pump in essence behaves like air conditioning but in reverse. Instead of cooling down your house and getting rid of excess heat via a radiator and fan unit outside, a heat pump cools down the outside air and pump that heat directly into your swimming pool or house. The physics of energy conservation mean that you end up with more energy than you pay for because heat is transferred from the ground or air into your house together with the energy you use to drive the pump in the first place.
This means that if you compare the cost of energy produced by a heat pump with the unit cost of heat provided by a standard electric heater, you can often get improvements of 300% or more. For space heating then, heat pumps offer a cost effective solution which means that your overall energy costs can be reduced with much of the heat energy you use actually being provided by the surrounding outside air or geothermally.
There are 2 chief types of heat pump: ground source heat pumps which extract geothermal warmth from the ground via an array of underground pipes, and air source heat pumps which get heat from air that is fanned over a heat exchanger with a low noise. ASHP pumps are usually the easier to install and nowadays are very quietquite quiet}. ASHP pumps operate even down to below zero temperatures.
GSHP or ground source heat pumps rely on a series of underground pipes which contain a pumped fluid that enters the pipe cold, having given up its heat to your home or pool, and then warms up to the ground temperature as it circulates. Once warm again it is made to give up its heat via the heat pump compressor which operates just like a fridge.
GSHPs are less easy to install than air source heat pumps but have the advantage of operating at slightly higher efficiencies during cold weather. The underground pipes can be laid horizontally or vertically via a deep bore and essentially take out goe thermal energy from the ground. This energy is always present at a low level but when combined with efficient heat pump technology it can be extracted and used to heat houses or pools very efficiently.
When selecting a heat pump you also need to select a good quality heat pump installer and it pays to use a firm that is professional qualified.