What is a Heat Pump?
Heat Pumps take energy from the air, ground or water and use it for space heating and hot water production. The best example which we all know of is a fridge. A fridge takes heat out of food, and pumps the heat into your kitchen, keeping the food cool.
Is a Heat Pump suitable for me?
Heat Pumps work best in houses off the gas grid or in new builds. You will need a large area outside for pipework typical three times the size of the house (for ground source heat pumps) or some space between you and your neighbours (for air source heat pumps).
Heat Pumps operate at a lower flow temperature than traditional boilers. Because of this they are ideally suited to well insulated houses with underfloor heating. It is possible to use a heat pump with radiators, for example when replacing an oil boiler. When this is done sometimes larger radiators are needed to get the same amount of heat. Older buildings are not energy efficient to use underfloor heating and low temperature radiators unless the insulation of the buildings are improved.
Heat Pump performance
The performance of Heat Pumps is rated as the Coefficient of Performance (CoP). This measures how many units of heat is generated per unit of electricity to run the heat pump. The higher the CoP the less amount of electricity is required. A high CoP represents good performance. A low CoP on the otherhand represents poor performance. A well designed and installed heat pump system should give a CoP of 3 or more.
Air Source Heat Pumps
Heat energy is collected from the external ambient air using the heat pumps integral evaporator coil. The energy is then transfered into the building as high grade heat. Air source heat pumps are situated outside of buildings, and on seasonal averages give a COP of 2.2. more
Ground Source Heat Pumps
Heat energy is harnessed through collectors buried in the ground or in water. For smaller installations where the appropriate area is available a horizontal collector can be used. For larger installations where the geology is suitable boreholes can be drilled to a depth that is dependant on the ground source heat pump requirements. more
