Heating a room with split aircon unit

Hi all,

the split aircon unit we bought last spring did a cool job cooling the bedroom down, but it also has a heat function. I have tried this and it gets a room upto 18c in no time...im sure it is more economical than using other forms heating as the unit only draws 1.2kw when operating. Is there any info online about using them for heating?

cheers

Steve

Reply to
R.P.McMurphy
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In message , R.P.McMurphy writes

Include the term "heat pump" in your search. Heating a house with a heat pump (what's in most AC units) is very efficient.

Reply to
Clive Mitchell

But is that what it does when it's heating? Does it chuck cold air out of where it would put out warm air when it's cooling (IYSWIM)?

Reply to
John Stumbles

Exactly right, hence the term "Heat Pump". The down side is that they generally don't work at low outside temperatures.

John

Reply to
John

In article , John writes

No they don't!. The one we have is fine except when it gets down to say less than 2-3 deg c when it spends a lot of time defrosting itself which means that its taking quite a bit off the mains in order to so that, but anything above those temps, its fine.

If you could imagine its working in reverse to what its doing in the summer months.. its trying to "cool" the outside air and get rid of the heat inside the room!...

Reply to
tony sayer

However, don't some just have a "fan heater" type of element to provide heating? Simpler and cheaper models.

Reply to
John

In message , tony sayer writes

But where heat pumps really do work for heating is where there's a modestly accessible geothermal source. This could be a bit of pipe laid at a modest depth under the garden or a heat extractor in a local stream.

Not particularly easy DIY projects though.

Reply to
Clive Mitchell

Could you suggest a system suitable for dropping down my well?

Reply to
Huge

In message , Huge writes

Yes. Anything by Microsoft.

Reply to
Clive Mitchell

Same with mine. Useful if you are working at home and only want to heat that room too, rather than the whole house.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

Reply to
Mr Fuxit

I did notice two other threads today related to hanging gates, but sadly they weren't what I thought.

Reply to
Andy Hall

In message , Clive Mitchell writes

The serious answer being that the water based heat extraction does require water flow to maintain the temperature difference.

Reply to
Clive Mitchell

Andy Hall pretended :

:-))

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

I.ve checked the unit's label, it says 1280w input power for 13000 btu output. 13000btu is 3.8kw...seems a good way to heat my house...will defo be using it more often from now on!

Steve

Reply to
R.P.McMurphy

Interesting if Cost{electricity) < 3 x Cost (gas)

Reply to
Andy Hall

That is a rating at certain temperatures only usually around 15 deg'c outdoor temp (and besides the Ebay Chinese specials are notoriously dodgy with their ratings.) the lower the outdoor temperature the closer to 1:1 it gets. However the better the manufacturer is the lower the outdoor temp can be before that point is reached.

If it's on this list

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's worth considering however some are still more energy efficient than others. The best overall in my view are Daikin but even within their own range of splits strangely some of them are more efficient than others.

The added bonus from this list is that anything on it has a 5% VAT levy. This applies to the unit and associated building costs. Whatever that might mean ;-)

Cheers

Richard

Reply to
r.bartlett

to use that as a heat source than burying pipes? I have considered seeing if it'd be possible to have my own hydro electrical generator running of it too..but am unsure where to start!

Steve

Reply to
R.P.McMurphy

I have some friends in Sweden who have this scenario and looked into it for heating of a swimming pool.

As it turned out, unless the water flow was substantial and with considerable drop (it wasn't either), the hydroelectric idea wasn't viable.

OTOH, there did seem to be a range of geothermal equipment available that would work with a borehole and they went with that. It could be that this kind of equipment could work with water circulated from a stream as well

Reply to
Andy Hall

In message , R.P.McMurphy writes

Is the stream fairly fast flowing and consistently full during the months when heat is needed?

Is it prone to heavy flow with attendant rock movement? My dad has a small river at the bottom of his garden and it can be very destructive to anything that gets in it's path.

Reply to
Clive Mitchell

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