In heat umps, where does the heat come from, how is it made available?
Doe heat pumps use electricity to operate?
What if the electricity goes out, how would you prevent your pipes from freezing in that situation? Can you use solar power? r does it take a lot of current like a resistive heater would to make a room toasty warm. That's what I see in our nations future and if I make a big investment that is what would like to avoid. But I have a feeling its going to become impossible to really save any real mmoney in this situation. If it was more people would be doing it. In other words, there are no free energy machines (yet?) Maybe there will be someday but I have a feeling the energy industry would do their best to get it off the market. At least here in the US. It really is like that here now. We are basically the core nexus of the cartel mentality. (Remember the light bulb cartel story?) Maybe geothermal heat in Iceland is a game changing technology. (because one can literally mine heat out of the earth in quantities sufficient to create hot water, etc. They also do that in Northern California here in the US, at Calistoga.
Look at the situation with COVID medications and vaccines.
Any half decent gas or oil burner is like 70-100% efficient. There is not much to gain.
Failing to have large open space for air-to-air heat pump, or having the preference of water-based central heat distribution instead of multiple noisy air-to-air units:
Air to water heat pump. Works well down to some -25degC with efficient in-floor distribution, or down to some -15degC with radiator distribution.
There's a total market hysteria going on here in Finland to the point of hyperinflation in their installation prices making them financially unsound, on the top of the typical 4000-6000EUR machine itself, installation prices are now around 8000-10000EUR for a typically 8-10-hour job. The hysteria was triggered by a 4000EUR subsidy which immediately went into the installation work price but that didn't tame the hysteria so the price continued to increase even from there. The total turnkey solution price went from 8k€ to 12k€ overnight, now it's in the range of 13-18k€, 15k€ typical.
But that didn't prevent me from installing one for myself and it's working great, and pays for itself in either 4 years (assuming I get no subsidy) or instantly (assuming I do get it; let's see what happens).
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In any case, air to water heat pump works great whenever your distribution system does not need high temperatures, or do so only small part of the year. I swapped some radiators to bigger, modern types. COP at air -7degC / water +35degC in my cheap Chinese EnergySave /Amitime machine is tad over 3, with defrost cycles included. But for comparison, COP at air -7 / water +45 already drops to mere 2.3 or so. At air below -20, it basically turns into direct electric heater, turning the contactor of the resistive elements on; or it can turn the oil boiler on as well. If I'd be using oil for the coldest winter days, this contraption would roughly reduce the yearly oil consumption from 2000 liters to around 200 liters. Seeing the cost of heating oil is now roughly the same as the cost of electricity, per energy, this means COP3 translates into over 60% cost savings.
(Note: Could you explain what you mean here, a bit more, I am out of the loop, I'm sorry.)
Insulation improvements are good and easy investments whenever you have some other reason to open up the structures as well.
My neighbor's opening up (or tarting up) of her structure (which pre-makeover was virtually the same as mine) may have gotten her a higher sale price than it would have sans makeover for her prettified home, but from the new owners perspective it seems to have been a huge and expensive mistake (they said so) because of drastically increased energy loss (in winter) and gain (in summer) The small, compact houses in my neighborhood were designed in the immediate postwar era in order to give returning servicemen and women affordable "starter homes". It was a simpler era when triple paned windows had not been invented yet. Large expanses of glass and two story living rooms with fireplaces (which she added but never used) were not practical then from an energy standpoint in this part of the US.. Older houses used fireplaces made with lots of thermal mass for both production and overnight storage of heat. Homes like them are never built today except perhaps when wealthy people build them. New housing makes extensive use of composite wood products too, which require more ventilation, but here that ventilation is rarely installed, despite manufacturers warnings that it requires ventilation. New buildings around here stinks badly of formaldehyde and plastics for years. Only the most expensive homes have fireplaces and those are built it seems exclusively of brick. (the way most US housing is built today, even expensive homes, is to use standardized products.) Older homes, particularly those built in the colonial era often have innovative innovative construction, details that have disappeared now. Fireplaces in these old homes are probably much more common in old housing in Europe. I have a friend who lives in a multistry house that dates back to the 1500s, for example, The electrical hookups were added more than 100 years ago.
The core of a house then was the fireplace or hearth. They used tons of stone, as they were built to store heat from a fire, kept alight continuously for months out of every year. Many cultures had gods or more typically goddesses of the hearth. Of the home.
It seems like - concrete heating floors, for example, were used by he Romans, also extensively in Asian beds.. In northeast China and Korea, areas where firewood has been used but also, I read has been in short supply for hundreds of years, due to high population density. Until fairly modern times, family homes often contained a "kang" (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kang_bed-stove ) customarily a hollow bed that also served as a stove and sort of chimney too, heat storage medium sleeping on it in the bitterly cold winters there. (whole families, 3 generations of families would sleep on this "kang". They are made, usually of fired brick. Or sometimes of concrete. Nowadays very few people and very little housing even there does this.
Basically most people live he same as Americans, Brits and Australians do.
I still don't understand how the heat pump technologies you are talking about works. I have a good understanding of physics..
Can you give me a short "explain it like I'm five" explanation. I can handle it.
I am worried that a smoke and mirrors act may be going on because of a desire to export commodities that have a domestic market that may not be able to afford them much longer, if demand is high elsewhere too.
I have a feeling that we have already taken care of all the low hanging fruit as far as energy savings goes, particularly when it comes to insulation goes. But we still have not done a blower door test, etc. (using negative air pressure and back pressure measurement and possibly a FLIR camera examination, to find even the small air leaks. )
Note to self, do that THIS year.
We have foam insulation, triple paned argon filled windows, LED lighting etc. The windows made a huge difference as well. They insulate so well that its been years since I have seen any condensation on our windows (except the non triple glass outside front door, which is just plain tempered glass. ) My house used to have one layer glass and metal windows that would ice up with filigree crystals in the winter from condensation. That required a lot of heat for us to stay warm.