A heat pump is a type of HVAC system that uses a heat exchange process to both heat and cool your home. The name might take some getting used to, but you’ll warm up to a heat pump’s cooling capabilities right away.
Your Home’s Temperature Changes Thanks to Heat Exchange
A heat pump uses evaporator and condenser coils. The coils are connected between the indoor and the outdoor units, and they have refrigerant that flows through them. The refrigerant is cold when it’s in the indoor coils. As air gets pulled into your system and passes over those coils, the air cools down and the refrigerant heats up. The heat pump then pushes the cool air into your home’s duct system, cooling your home.
The refrigerant, now warm, goes to the condenser coils, where the compressor makes it cool again before returning it to the indoor coils.
The Heat Exchange Process Reverses
The heat pump works to cool your home by using the interior coils as evaporator coils in summer. In winter, the heat pump actually works the other way. The outdoor coil becomes the evaporator coil, with the cool refrigerant. The indoor coil becomes the condenser coil, which is the coil that deals with the warm refrigerant.
The refrigerant is colder than the outdoor air. Despite the air outside being chilly, the refrigerant can still absorb heat from it and warm up. Then, that warm refrigerant goes inside where your HVAC system passes air over it. The air picks up that heat and gets blown throughout your home, heating your interior.
As you can see, a heat pump is a marvelous type of HVAC system because it will both heat and cool.