4 ms·

Hopefully permanently if heat pumps catch on as well as they have been. Edit: are heat pumps considered A/C?

gattilorenz 3y ago
Only if they produce cold (and dry) air, I guess. In general, with an air to water or ground to water heat pump you can technically cool your floor, but that won’t help much (you can’t go very low, to avoid condensation problems)
- hnbad 3y ago
  FWIW with underfloor heating you can reduce the room temperature by a few degrees compared to the outside temperature but this is also generally the recommendation for A/C (which of course doesn't stop people from setting it way lower than that because they can).
  - gattilorenz 3y ago
    True. Even at the same temperature A/C does have the added benefit of removing humidity, which leads to more… tolerable heat.
hnbad 3y ago
Heat pumps are technically inverted A/Cs and can usually be put in inverted mode to act as regular A/Cs but they're often used to warm up / cool down water whereas a conventional A/C pumps the cooled air directly into the rooms. Heat pumps that work the same way are also sometimes called air-air heat pumps (contrasted with air-water, which in turn are contrasted with water heat pumps which pump brine into a network of underground pipes to create the heat differential). When picking a heating system my wife and I did look into air-air heat pumps but as we live in Central Europe and thus need the system for heating as much if not more than cooling and the building's insulation and rooftop solar panels already reduce the need for cooling outside very long and extreme heatwaves, we decided against it (and went with a more common air-water heat pump with underfloor heating) because they're not very efficient for heating. As I understand it, while underfloor heating retains heat at a stable level even when venting, airflow heating loses heat considerably more rapidly. To compensate, in order to heat up the room more rapidly, air-air heat pump systems often have electric heaters at the vents. These essentially work like an electric hair dryer and consume a lot of energy. On the other hand, underfloor heating is worse at cooling. Anecdotal reports seem to be mixed on both systems with the only consensus generally being that if you want either system to be more efficient you should look into insulation above all else.
sebazzz 3y ago
A/C are heat pumps. They pump inside heat to the outside, and any modern A/C that isn't a mobile unit can also reverse its mode of operation and pump heat from outside to inside. Heat, not air, you still need to maintain an healthy air balance inside (CO2, humidity).

Only if they produce cold (and dry) air, I guess. In general, with an air to water or ground to water heat pump you can technically cool your floor, but that won’t help much (you can’t go very low, to avoid condensation problems)

hnbad 3y ago
FWIW with underfloor heating you can reduce the room temperature by a few degrees compared to the outside temperature but this is also generally the recommendation for A/C (which of course doesn't stop people from setting it way lower than that because they can).
- gattilorenz 3y ago
  True. Even at the same temperature A/C does have the added benefit of removing humidity, which leads to more… tolerable heat.

hnbad 3y ago

Heat pumps are technically inverted A/Cs and can usually be put in inverted mode to act as regular A/Cs but they're often used to warm up / cool down water whereas a conventional A/C pumps the cooled air directly into the rooms. Heat pumps that work the same way are also sometimes called air-air heat pumps (contrasted with air-water, which in turn are contrasted with water heat pumps which pump brine into a network of underground pipes to create the heat differential). When picking a heating system my wife and I did look into air-air heat pumps but as we live in Central Europe and thus need the system for heating as much if not more than cooling and the building's insulation and rooftop solar panels already reduce the need for cooling outside very long and extreme heatwaves, we decided against it (and went with a more common air-water heat pump with underfloor heating) because they're not very efficient for heating. As I understand it, while underfloor heating retains heat at a stable level even when venting, airflow heating loses heat considerably more rapidly. To compensate, in order to heat up the room more rapidly, air-air heat pump systems often have electric heaters at the vents. These essentially work like an electric hair dryer and consume a lot of energy. On the other hand, underfloor heating is worse at cooling. Anecdotal reports seem to be mixed on both systems with the only consensus generally being that if you want either system to be more efficient you should look into insulation above all else.

sebazzz 3y ago

A/C are heat pumps. They pump inside heat to the outside, and any modern A/C that isn't a mobile unit can also reverse its mode of operation and pump heat from outside to inside. Heat, not air, you still need to maintain an healthy air balance inside (CO2, humidity).