ASHP and GSHP Heat Pumps Made Easy

Heat Pumps are now being used widely to heat buildings and swimming pools in a cost effective way. A heat pump essentially acts like AC but in the opposite direction. Instead of cooling down your house and shedding excess heat via a radiator and external fan unit, a heat pump will cool down the outside air and pump that heat directly into your house or pool. The physics of energy conservation mean that you end up with more energy than you pay for because heat energy is pumped from the ground or air) into your house along with the energy you use to operate the system in the first place.

What this means is that if you compare the unit cost of heat produced by a heat pump with the unit cost of heat delivered by a standard electric heater, you can usually achieve improvements of 300 percent or greater. For space heating then, heat pumps thus offer a highly cost effective solution which means that your overall energy costs can be reduced with much of the heat you use actually being provided by the ground or by the outside air.

There are two chief types of heat pump: GSHP or ground source heat pumps which extract warmth from the ground via an array of underground pipes, and ASHP or 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 currently are very quietquite quiet}. ASHP pumps operate even down to sub-zero temperatures.

Ground source heat pumps rely on a series of underground pipes which contain a pumped liquid that enters the pipes cold, having given up its heat to your home, and then warms up to the surrounding ground temperature as it flows through the system. Once warm again it is made to give up its heat via the heat pump compressor which operates just like a fridge.

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 vertically via a deep bore hole or horizontally and essentially extract geothermal heat from the ground. This energy is always present at a low level but in conjunction with efficient heat pump technology it can be extracted and used to heat houses or pools highly effectively.

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.

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