Eco-Friendly Heat Pumps and Air Conditioners
When you are thinking about having air conditioning fitted to your home, there are a number of options open to you.
One of the most eco-friendly of these is to use a heat pump assembly that not only cools your home in summer, it also heats it in winter and the source of the heating and cooling comes from the geothermal source in the ground under your yard! Let's see how this works.
This type of system does not rely on electricity to directly generate heating or cooling, but takes the temperature from below ground, which is generally constant and not greatly affected by the ambient air temperature.
This means that a geothermal or heat pump air conditioning system can make use of this constant temperature to feed your house and keep its interior temperature similarly constant.
Cost Effective HVAC?
These systems are generally designed as HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) which enables them to regulate the interior temperature of your home much more efficiently than several standalone units and at a much reduced cost.
That's because they do not draw power directly for temperature control. They only use electricity for the flow control, which is very low compared to a regular power sucking HVAC system.
How is a Ground Source Heat Pump Eco Friendly?
The principle is based upon the basic Thermodynamic Law that takes the constant temperature from below ground and literally pumps it through the system into your home.
It works best in moderate climates and obviously has limitations in that it will not be so effective in areas where the predominant air temperature is above a certain figure for most of the year with constant sunshine that heats the ground, and similarly in very cold climates where the ground is frozen for long periods.
But in moderate or temperate climates where temperature fluctuations are not so great, this kind of system will warm your home in the cold winter months, because the temperature below ground is many degrees higher than the air temperature. Similarly, the system will keep your house cool in the hot summer months as the temperature below ground remains many degrees cooler than the air temperature.
What it All Costs
The initial cost of installation can be relatively high when compared with other HVAC systems, but this cost is balanced out over time in reduced power bills to the point where the system actually pays for itself after as little as five years operation.
After that you benefit every year, year in and year out by much reduced power bills because the heating and cooling of a house can make up the bulk of a home's power consumption with regular cooling and heating systems.
When having a heat pump air conditioning system installed in your home, it pays to use a well know, trusted and well respected company to manage the work as this type of installation requires skilled workers to do the work and a reputable company will give you a full warranty. This is important for piece of mind because having such an important system as this installed by cheap labor and an unskilled and less reputable company can be costly if the system breaks down due to unprofessional installation.
When compared to conventional air conditioning systems and even portable air conditioners, geothermal heat pump systems can provide electrical energy savings of as much as 70 percent or more (source: EPA). This makes it very attractive in these times of constant price hikes for power.
What is more, they are also friendly to the environment with no CO2 emissions of their own As they draw much less power from the grid, they also help by reducing the amount of fuel needed to produce that electricity in the first place. Something to think about!