Super Fitness Health BlogASHP and GSHP Heat Pumps Made Easy
Heat Pumps are now being used widely to heat buildings and swimming pools in a cost effective manner. A heat pump essentially 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 instead into your swimming pool or house. The physics of energy conservation mean that you get out more energy than you pay for because heat is transferred from the air (or ground) into your house together with the energy you use to drive the system in the first place.
This means that if you compare the unit cost of heat provided by a heat pump with the unit cost of heat provided by a standard electric heater, you can frequently achieve improvements of 250% or more. For space heating then, heat pumps thus offer a cost effective solution which means that your overall energy costs can be substantially reduced with much of the heat energy you use actually being provided by the surrounding outside air or geothermally.
There are two main types of heat pump: GSHP or ground source heat pumps which extract geothermal warmth from the ground via a network of underground pipes, and air source heat pumps which extract heat from air that is blown over a heat exchanger with a fan. Air source heat pumps are usually the easier to install and today are quite quiet}. They operate even down to sub-zero temperatures.
Ground source heat pumps rely on a series of underground pipes which contain a pumped working 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 flows through the system. Once warm again it enters the heat pump and gives off its heat again to repeat the cycle.
GSHPs are more difficult to install than air source heat pumps but have the advantage of operating at slightly higher efficiency during very 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 highly effectively.
When choosing a heat pump you also need to select a good quality heat pump installer and it pays to use a firm that has a lot of experience and is professionally qualified.
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