Heating a room with split aircon unit

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.

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)?

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

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!...

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

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.

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

In message , Huge writes

Yes. Anything by Microsoft.

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

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

In message , Clive Mitchell writes

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

Andy Hall pretended :

:-))

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.