The Cooling Process
To best explain how heat pumps cool your home, consider how a refrigerator works. It uses electricity to transfer heat from a cooler location to a warmer one. During the summer, the heat pump pulls the heat from the air in your home and transfers it outside, similar to how a refrigerator operates.
The most commonly used type of pump is the air-source split system. To understand the cooling process, let’s examine the pump system. An indoor component contains the evaporator, indoor coil, and a circulating fan. The outdoor component contains a fan, a compressor, and the outside coil.
The circulating fan pulls the warm air through the return air ducts from inside your home to the outdoor unit. The warm air passes over the outside coil where the liquid refrigerant pulls the heat from the air. As the air is cooled, it is sent back into the home and circulated by the indoor fan through the ductwork.
The heated refrigerant travels to the compressor where it is pressurized before returning to the coil. When the refrigerant enters the coil it condenses and now releases the heat it gained indoors into the air that passes through the outdoor coil.
The Key is the Reversing Valve
You may be wondering how heat pumps can heat your home when it is cold and be able to cool your home during the summer. The answer to that question is one key component within the heat pump, the reversing valve.
The reversing valve allows the pump to act as a heating system and as a cooling system. It reverses the flow of refrigerant through the system depending on whether it is set to the heating or cooling mode. The indoor evaporator and outside condenser actually switch jobs when heating the home to bring warm air inside.
If you have been considering having a heat pump installed in your home, it is time to speak with the experts at Gentry Heating. We can help you decide which type of pump, air source or geothermal is right for increasing the energy efficiency of your Columbus, NC home. We provide the highest quality products and service for our friends and neighbors in our community. Please give us a call for additional information about heat pumps and our other fine products.
