Anatomy Of A Heat Pump: How The Sum Of The Parts Means Greater Efficiency

A heat pump offers central Florida homeowners a highly efficient way to heat and cool their homes. In warmer climates similar to Orlando’s, heat pumps provide very effective levels of cooling. Their all-electric operation means that no fuel source is necessary for generating heat. Heat pumps can produce up to four times as much heat energy as the electrical energy they consume, which makes them extremely efficient and cost effective.

Heat pumps operate on a principle similar to that of a refrigerator: they move heat from one place to another, removing it from where it’s not wanted and dispersing it where it’s needed.

Heat pumps consist of five major components: the compressor, the condenser, evaporator, air handler and the reversing valve. The compressor pushes a refrigerant through two sets of copper coils, one inside your house and the other outside. The condenser also pressurizes the refrigerant when needed as it changes state from a gas to liquid.

When heating, the outside coils serve as the evaporator and the inside coils as the condenser. In the evaporator, the refrigerant vaporizes into a gas and extracts heat from the outdoor air. The compressor sends the refrigerant through an expansion valve to the condenser coils inside. The refrigerant is pressurized and becomes liquid again, releasing the heat it contains and warming the air around the coils. The air handler, which is a powerful fan, then distributes the warm air throughout your home.

The reversing valve switches the direction of refrigerant flow and the roles of the inside and outside coils to provide cooling. The gaseous refrigerant in the inside coils pulls heat from your home’s interior, then releases it through the outside coils as the refrigerant condenses under high pressure back into liquid.

Rinaldi’s Air Conditioning has been providing reliable heating and air conditioning services to customers in Orlando and central Florida for more than 40 years. Contact us today for more information on heat pumps and how they can save you money all year long, to get an estimate on a heat pump system, or to schedule an installation.

Our goal is to help educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).  For more information about heat pumps and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.

Rinaldi’s services Orlando, Florida and the surrounding areas. Visit our website to see our special offers and get started today!