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Is there any meaningful difference between a heat pump and an air conditioner, other than the direction the heat is pumped in? Wouldn't it be more accurate to

• jasode 4y ago
  >Is there any meaningful difference between a heat pump and an air conditioner, other than the direction the heat is pumped in? In terms of basic science, they are the same principle so "air conditioner" is a type of "heat pump". But in terms of semantics that is understood by the general public for purposes of differentiating various HVAC equipment one can buy, a heat pump has an extra reversing valve to change the flow of refrigerant. A standard air conditioner doesn't have that extra feature. When folks casually say "heat pumps", they're talking about a HVAC equipment category and not general science principles.
• otikik 4y ago
  US people call them heat pumps because they have been calling the non-reversible cold-only kind “air conditioner” so they needed a new term. In Europe most units are reversible cold/heat unit so “air conditioning” means making air both colder and hotter. We would call the ACs the Americans have “air coolers”, if we needed to make the difference.