Quite possibly :)
What staggers me is the number of posters infesting this thread that I have killfiled and thus never even see, at least under normal circumstances. When my post initially failed to appear I looked on google groups and what I saw was quite revealing
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The pump has to work harder to extract fewer BTUs from the source (outside air) so the rfficiency drops off. Significantly. GSHP suffers much less from this as subterranean temp stays pretty steady.
They may be getting to be common in the north. Many people do not have the land area to install one. The GSHP will work very well as the ground temperature is often around 55 deg F. Along the same line is the ones that pump water out of one well and put it back in another. Still not too practical for the average home owner.
The cost to install one may be another big factor. I have not looked into that cost as where I live it does not get very cold for very long at one time.
I've heard of one here in NJ, never seen one. The problem is that the math is horrific. They cost so much, many times what a nat gas or oil system would cost, that it's impossible to come out right side up over the life of the system. They are attractive to environmentalists with deep pockets, who think one system is going to matter.
It is THE factor, the cost of the ground part is a disaster. Plus you get to have guys tearing up your yard.
But it's common in the UK for temperatures to fall below zero so unless the box fitted external to the house is being heated it always has the potential to freeze up irrespective of the size of the heat exchanger.
If you input air at say 0C and extract heat from it that colder air must go somewhere within the heat pump box. The heat extracted is routed into the house and generally in the case in the UK most probably in the form of hot (warm) water.
So an air sourced heat pump doesn't work well when you need it most as the temperature approaches zero Celsius during the winter? In the UK where price of building land is at a premium new builds are often on a postage sized plot where ground sourced heat pumps may not be to viable. Around my way many new builds are multiple flats without gardens. Heat pumps (presumably air sourced) are being touted as being the green solution for central heating in the UK for new builds.
But after melting the ice and reverting back to supplying heat when the outside temperature is still at, or close to, zero will it not immediately freeze up again if there is enough moisture in the air? If you have to heat an external box it be much more efficient to provide direct electric heating within the building.
The flip side of that is down here around the 26th parallel and below heat pumps don't make that much sense economically because we seldom actually turn on the heat and when we do it is typically a small space heater, not heating up the whole house. The 30-40 hours a year or less that my wife has a 1440w heater going would not justify paying the extra money for a heat pump and she only heats a small space, not the whole house. The heat pump draws more than 1440w.
So now you are pumping that heat back outside, after you paid for it to be pumped inside. Sounds pretty inefficient to me. Heat pumps suck if it gets much below
40F you are dealing with the laws of thermodynamics here.
Many people are following rules requiring them to dress inappropriately.
I find that if I leave the AC on on a cool night, it gets too cold.
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The air heat pumps work fine down to about - 2 or -3 deg C or close to
25 deg F. It is below that the efficency starts to fall fast. Around - 6 or -7 deg C they start to become very inefficent and the resistance coils in the air duct start to take over.In areas around here when it gets to 32 deg F or 0 C there is very little moisture in the air. So it takes a long time for the ice to build up. When it does, most will reverse the cycle and go into what would normally be an aircondition cooling mode. That puts heat on the outside coils and melts the ice. Sometimes the electric heating coils will come on so as not to blow cool air out the inside air vents.
During wet and rain the ice will build up , but we do not usually have that much rain when it is near freezing.
As long as the cost of electricity is not too high and you live in an area of say a line from Virginia south and not in the mountains the heat pump is a good way to go.
While for a short period of time you do pump heat out of the house to the outside to de ice, it is not for very long. In a manner of speaking the heat pumps are over 100% efficent. That is you are moving the heat by electricity instead of just heating the air with resistance heaters which many call baseboard heaters.
I moved from a house that had just AC and a natural gas furnace to one with a heat pump. The new house is about 2 times as large but better insulated. The whole electric bill per month in the winter is less than just the gas bill was at the other house..It is just my wife and I . We do have a well so supply our own water too where in the other house we did not.
No, the heat pumps only start to suck if it gets much below 25 deg F and stays there for long periods of time. They really suck if it is below
20 deg F for long periods of time and are useless if in areas colder.My electric rate is not very much, around 11 cents per KWH.
All I am talking about is the open air heat pumps. Not a lot of homes will have the water/earth type mainly due to the expense of installing them and maybe the room to do it.
Same thing. It's a number specifying how much of something the item will do.
The MPs inside the camera are irrelevant. What matters is useful MPs output to the file.
It's a telephone. It makes phonecalls and sends texts. If I wanted to use the internet on the move, I'd get a tablet, with oodles more room on the screen.
No, Apple are well known for making them as thin as possible.
Irrelevant, the battery is huge compared to yours. Do Apple even tell you the amp hours?
Iphone bricking is infamous.
Whyever not? An AC unit could say "if outside is 30C and inside is 20C, then it will have x efficiency if running at full power".
What? Are you saying your phone won't let you talk for 3 hours on one charge?
Well in that case it's a single mini split. One indoor unit, one outdoor unit, connected through a wall by piping. Although quite why the piping would change the efficiency I don't know, unless it was a very long run.
I shall list several of them and decide on price, efficiency, etc.
And in a hot climate, they heat the outdoors :-)
So you can get around the law by buying a different type. ROFL!
Never put 2 or more women in an office unless you put in a fake thermostat.
Have a hidden one and set it. Then tell the women to use the one on the wall and set it to where they want it. They will be turning it up and down all day. They may even fight over it.
You mean wearing a shirt and tie in sweltering heat? I don't accept that. I wear what I want, or change job.
Doesn't it have a thermostat?
To misquote Rod
"That soggy little frigid island of yours is nothing like what is seen in the rest of the world"
But for the 1440W with the heat pump you'd get 4x, 5x the heat that you get from an electric resistance heater. You could heat all or most of the place, instead of one room.
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