Non-native English speaker, but I looked it up the other day and it seems that pedantically an A/C only cools things down and heat pumps can both heat and cool.
ACs are just heat pumps where they forgot to install the reversing valve.
Heat pumps running in heating mode are basically ACs that are trying to cool down the outside. The fundamental technology just moves heat from one place to another, leaving one place warmer and one place colder.
This is also how fridges and freezers work - they have heat pumps that pump out the heat from inside their box and as such make the room they are in warmer.
Yes, an air conditioner is a heat pump with a fixed orientation, what basically equates to a handful of valves to switch the direction of the refrigerant. The actual expensive parts that generate the temperature difference are identical between the two machines.
Probably a local nomenclature thing.
Heat Pump is the most common name for phase change cooling/heating system. (No matter the medium(s) being heated/cooled)
Yet I have never seen a food refrigerator called a heat pump. Air-to-air always seems to be called AC to differentiate it from the air-to-water the UK government wants to push.
Well… Kind of. Heat pumps are a more modern iteration, which can both heat or cool a room. And they’re not like a traditional central AC system, where you have a central compressor and ducts running to each vent. Instead, you run refrigerant lines to each room, then the individual room unit actually does the cooling locally. It’s the same basic principle (using refrigerant to move heat outside, thus cooling the air,) but heat pumps are a more modern take.
And as an added bonus, a heat pump can also be used as a heater (and be much more efficient than a traditional heating coil.) Because it’s just moving heat around from the interior and exterior, and that can include moving heat indoors to warm the interior. And since they’re just moving heat (instead of using a coil to generate it) they can be over 100% efficient when you’re measuring wattage consumed vs heat produced.
It’s literally the same machine
Non-native English speaker, but I looked it up the other day and it seems that pedantically an A/C only cools things down and heat pumps can both heat and cool.
ACs are just heat pumps where they forgot to install the reversing valve.
Heat pumps running in heating mode are basically ACs that are trying to cool down the outside. The fundamental technology just moves heat from one place to another, leaving one place warmer and one place colder.
This is also how fridges and freezers work - they have heat pumps that pump out the heat from inside their box and as such make the room they are in warmer.
Yes, an air conditioner is a heat pump with a fixed orientation, what basically equates to a handful of valves to switch the direction of the refrigerant. The actual expensive parts that generate the temperature difference are identical between the two machines.
Nope AC at least where I have been can do both. Heat pumps are for water.
Probably a local nomenclature thing. Heat Pump is the most common name for phase change cooling/heating system. (No matter the medium(s) being heated/cooled)
Yet I have never seen a food refrigerator called a heat pump. Air-to-air always seems to be called AC to differentiate it from the air-to-water the UK government wants to push.
There are also heat pumps that only heat. It takes a second valve or so to enable it to switch directions.
I could just mount it backwards in my window!
Well… Kind of. Heat pumps are a more modern iteration, which can both heat or cool a room. And they’re not like a traditional central AC system, where you have a central compressor and ducts running to each vent. Instead, you run refrigerant lines to each room, then the individual room unit actually does the cooling locally. It’s the same basic principle (using refrigerant to move heat outside, thus cooling the air,) but heat pumps are a more modern take.
And as an added bonus, a heat pump can also be used as a heater (and be much more efficient than a traditional heating coil.) Because it’s just moving heat around from the interior and exterior, and that can include moving heat indoors to warm the interior. And since they’re just moving heat (instead of using a coil to generate it) they can be over 100% efficient when you’re measuring wattage consumed vs heat produced.
AC is a version of heatpump that cools your house. Refridgerator is a heatpump that keeps your food cool. Freezer is a heatpump wäthat freezes things.
AC is not the same thing as heatpump. AC is just one application of an heatpump.
It is the exact same hardware running in different configurations, all that changes is refrigerant flow direction.
That is exactly what I said. I was just trying to say that heatpump is not the same thing as AC just as car is not the same thing as an engine.
Seems like you’re talking about heat pump (technology) and I’m talking about heat pump (commercial product)
But yeah, heat pumps (technology) are used in lots of every day places.