The Tech Behind the Heat Pump Boom

By: Brian Sodoma, for Service Experts

If you’re considering a new climate control system, you’ve most likely seen heat pumps. While they’ve been around for more than a century, in 2020 they finally passed gas furnaces in sales. Distinct from traditional heaters, which use natural gas, propane gas or oil combustion for heating and electricity for cooling, heat pumps only use electricity.

Heat pumps are attractive since they are very energy efficient and environmentally friendly; they don’t burn fossil fuels like natural gas. Heat pumps are regarded as a key solution for cutting carbon emissions and studies reveal that heat pumps are a greener option for efficient heating. At the same time, worries about their efficiency in cold weather have deterred some buyers. But that’s no longer an issue—thanks to advances in technology.

Learn more about how heat pump technology improvements are making them better than ever for a comfortable, energy-efficient home.

The Benefits of Heat Pumps

Capable of generating quadruple the amount of energy than it takes, a heat pump is much more efficient than conventional gas furnaces and can even be more efficient than a high-efficiency make/model. And even though coal-based energy plans still operate today, new renewable energy sources including wind and solar are growing, making all-electric heating and cooling systems even more enticing to today’s green-minded consumers.

In addition, federal tax credits of up to $2,000 for qualified heat pumps are another reason for the increasing demand of heat pumps. When paired with other state and local incentives, homeowners can further increase their total savings.

“Heat pumps are increasingly more energy efficient than typical gas heaters, and they can help you substantially cut your power bill—and for some homeowners, by $500 or more annually,” said Cary Reed, a Service Experts heating and cooling pro.

How It Works

When it’s cold outside, heat pumps use heat from the outside air to increase indoor temperature by transporting it through coils. The heat is released indoors, increasing the home’s temperature. The key player here is the refrigerant, which changes from liquid to gas–and then back to liquid–as it gathers and releases heat along the way.

When it’s hot, the process switches the other way. Heat is taken out of the home and pumped outside through the refrigerant coils.

The process works as follows:

• During winter, a coil heat exchanger together with a metering device transfers heat from the outside air to the liquid refrigerant inside the coil. Even at cold outdoor temperatures, there is still heat accessible in the outside air. As the heat transfers to the refrigerant, it raises its temperature to its boiling point and transforms it from liquid to gas.

• Then, a compressor moves the gas refrigerant through the system, raising the pressure of the gas so the heat is expelled into the home by a fan or blower. As the heat is emitted, the refrigerant turns back into a liquid. The process repeats until the home’s thermostat is reached.

• A reversing valve is used to flip the system from heating to cooling. The reversing valve is managed by the thermostat and will change the cycle during the summer, transferring heat from indoors to outdoors.

New Innovations Further Improve Heating Efficiency

When the outdoor temperature decreases, heat pumps become less effective and have trouble maintaining the same heating capacity. But top brands have adopted important technological improvements to improve both the efficiency and capacity of heat pumps in the winter.

For starters, all manufacturers are designing systems to reach higher SEER (Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio) rating standards. A higher SEER rating means lower energy use for the system. While SEER largely pertains to cooling, the heat pump’s energy and cost savings throughout the summer rise considerably as minimum SEER standards rise.

And in regards to a heat pump’s total capacity, top brands have created systems that maintain maximum efficiency and heating capacity even after the temperatures fall as low as -15 degrees. This marks a dramatic 20- to 30-degree improvement compared against standards just five years ago.

“How are they making this happen? They have access to enhanced variable-speed compressors to reduce the time it needs to adjust power while using less energy. Also, the heat exchangers used in modern units are much larger, which explained. In case of severe cold, the systems can employ secondary heaters that will start below a specific temperature.

This new technology has been partially driven by the Department of Energy’s Residential Climate Heat Pump Technology Challenge, an initiative that’s focused on advancing heat pump innovation.

“The heat pump boom is actually a perfect storm,” Reed said. “People want to do their part for the climate while cutting costs on monthly bills, and there are significant economic and government forces incentivizing it. We are even seeing some customers, who purchase a heat pump, will also upgrade their insulation to increase their energy efficiency and cost savings.”

To learn more about heat pumps, go to serviceexperts.com/heat-pumps. To set up an appointment with an Expert heat pump installer, visit our scheduling page.