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It's an industry term for mechanical equipment that can heat AND cool. One piece of equipment replaces your AC AND heat source. Heat pumps in particular are ge
by Maxburn 3y ago
It's an industry term for mechanical equipment that can heat AND cool. One piece of equipment replaces your AC AND heat source.
Heat pumps in particular are getting a push from "green" initiatives because they only use electricity for fuel which can potentially be supplied by "renewable" sources.
ie; it's a buzz word.
- kevin_thibedeau 3y agoIt's not just buzz. It's more efficient than resistive heating and modern units have better performance in cold temps. Hence the push to promote them. The downside is that you have added complexity driving up installation costs and reliability down.
- Maxburn 3y agoWalk around in the American Heating and Refrigeration conference for a while to get a feel of these trends, this was specifically called out by many manufacturers as driven by the green movement.
- triceratops 3y agoThat doesn't make them a buzz word.
- kevin_thibedeau 3y agoIt's being driven by government pressure to reduce energy consumption and dependence on fuel imports. That isn't a bad thing. It's the sort of thing a responsible government should be planning for.
- jonny_eh 3y agoBeing responsible is so trendy.
- Alupis 3y agoNatural gas is available in abundance, is nearly free in terms of cost, and is vastly more "green" than many alternatives available today. It may not be as green as pure electric can be in theory, but in large portions of this country electric isn't all that green either. Heat pumps appear expensive to operate. Imagine running your AC year-round... that very thought makes many-a-homeowner shudder.
- bfuller 3y agoHeat pumps are expensive to operate, and a nightmare to fix. There is a big movement to build whole subdivisions without using natural gas at all, electric ranges and heat pumps. I don't know why it upsets me so much but it does.
- Alupis 3y agoWell, the no-gas thing upsets me because cooking on modern electric cooktops/stoves is still staggeringly awful.
- cycrutchfield 3y agoInduction cooktops heat faster and more evenly than gas
- Alupis 3y agoThere's many good reasons induction cooktops aren't used in commercial kitchens... and those reasons apply for home-cooks as well.
- Tor3 3y agoBut they are used in commercial kitchens. I joined a cooking course arranged by a well-known restaurant where I live, and to my surprise the kitchen we used used induction. Very easy to operate, and you could easily set the heating exactly. It worked basically as a gas restaurant kitchen, just without the gas.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jondwillis 3y agoWhy put renewable in quotes? Because it isn’t 100%?
- Maxburn 3y agoBasically yes. Renewable is more of a supplement to current grids for most of us. There might be a couple rare few areas that currently claim 100%.
- triceratops 3y agoVs the alternative, natural gas, which is famously 100% renewable?
- Maxburn 3y agoMaster-Blaster rules Bartertown!
- 1-more 3y ago> because they only use electricity for fuel which can potentially be supplied by "renewable" sources. They also can operate at >100% efficiency. Under the right conditions (I'll let someone who knows more about it fill that in) they can provide more heat than the same amount of power going into a resistive heater (which is I think per-se 100% efficient right?). Kinda wild.
- Maxburn 3y agoOR another (incorrect) way of thinking is that resistive heating is 100% efficient as every bit of heat generated is inside the home. VS mechanical heat has some "loss" with some of the heat being left outside the home. But yes, mechanical might be up to 600% efficient depending on how you think about it as moving heat around based on energy usage per therm delivered inside the home is really what people are looking for.
- IanCal 3y agoThis should happen under a fairly wide range of temperatures for modern heat pumps. Quoted figures are usually in the 3-4x more efficient than resistive heating when adjusted for seasonality for air source heat pumps. Ground source are more like 5+ I think. That's lab figures though so I guess similar to car efficiency figures.