A call to replace air conditioners with heat pumps in California
A call to replace air conditioners with heat pumps in California
Advocates want new building codes to include a heat-pump provision that could benefit consumers and the climate. But regulators have cooled on the proposal.
Air conditioners are already heat-pumps. This change would moreso replace furnaces.
Every heat pump is an air conditioner, not every air conditioner is a heat pump. They require a reversing valve to function both ways.
The furnace doesn't need to change. I have a nat gas furnace with an electric heat pump. You can also do electric heat pump with an electric air handler. There are plenty of combos.
That said, every year I run the numbers and despite my heat pump being ~300% efficient my 95% efficient nat gas furnace is still cheaper to operate (based on the cost of each energy source). I'd LOVE to go solar and operate as close to 100% electric as possible but with my old growth trees and shitty house orientation I wouldn't even break-even in the lifetime of the panels. :(
They're heat pumps in a technical sense, but coloquial terms, a "heat pump" is a heat pump which can actually heat a space.
The outside is a space too.
They mean to say replace heat pumps with reverse cycle heat pumps
<for those who are uninitiated in the black arts of HVAC, "reverse cycle heat pump" is a fancy way to say "air conditioner". The headline makes no sense as written. A "heat pump" is just an air conditioner that you turned around so it cools down the outside and heats up your house.>
The headline absolutely makes sense for the US market. The default terminology in the HVAC industry here is that an air conditioner provides cooling, and a heat pump provides heating and cooling. It's really that simple and correct in this case, as that's the common understanding in the industry.
Obviously other countries, thermodynamics textbooks, and other applications like refrigeration use different terminology. But holy shit it's not that hard and we don't need to get all pedantic using definitions from other industries that don't apply to this narrow topic.
It is exactly that. "Heat pump" is the term used for an air conditioner that can run both ways, it can pump heat from inside out in the summer, and from outside in in the winter. An "Air conditioner" only runs one way.
Essentially an air conditioner that can very efficently both heat and cool rather than just do one
Wait arent air conditioners heat pumps???
Because it costs about $5 more to put in a valve which lets them work both ways, and people don't really know that this is a possibility, so they don't ask for it.
Most modern ones are. But the old models don't have a reverse cycle built into them. Also, for efficient heating in low temperatures you might want a different gas. Maybe not as relevant in California, but normally you wouldn't be able to use your AC as a heat pump in below 0 celcius.
Nah. They are one direction only. The heating part is literally just an electric furnace in an air conditioner. Heat pumps have them too, but they reverse where is the hot side and where the cold side is. An air conditioner is always hot side outside, cool inside.
The article title really confused me, because a heat pump is basically an air conditioner anyway.
homeowners to replace their aging or broken central air conditioners with electric heat pumps. The climate-friendly appliances can both warm and cool buildings by pulling heat from outside to indoors or vice versa.
What are the environmental impacts of manufacturing of replacement heat pump units to replace functioning A/C units vs keeping them?
This is about a regulation for new construction, so it's kind of a moot point.
The key question is going to be whether refrigerant in the old unit is properly disposed of. Likely a net benefit so long as it is.
If the existing A/C don't support heating, then presumably heat pumps are displacing far inferior gas or resistive electric units (or even wood burning heaters). Heat pumps absolutely destroy them in terms of efficiency, and it's hard to believe the embodied emissions plus ongoing emissions would be worse with a heat pump. And just as importantly, the fossil fuel industry needs to be made unprofitable as soon as possible, and anything that gets people off gas is therefore a good thing.
My lemmy client bugged out again and gave me this
Confused the hell out of me and I don't know how to feel about the image
It's a feature.
A thread about heat pumps without Technology Connections? That's not right. https://youtu.be/7J52mDjZzto?si=ZhMTJTltlcOA1_Pa
This is the most confusing headline lmao
Definitely. Bad headlines are unfortunately common