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Technical Information

Heat Pump Operation in the Home

As a refrigeration engineer and heat pump owner myself, the most frequently asked question when I'm out servicing, repairing and installing heat pumps for Saxon Appliances and Alpine Air conditioning is, should I run my heat pump all the time or turn it off and on? This is such a loaded question and the answer can only really be addressed on a case by case basis. But if I'm in their house at the time it makes it easier for me to answer.
There is a lot of comment in the media at the moment about heat pumps and the cost of running them; I hope the following will help you decide what is best for you.

There are so many variables so I'll talk about the main ones:
• The age and construction of the room to be heated;
• Is there insulation in the ceiling and floor and what type?
• Location and number of windows and if they are double glazed?
• The size and make and model of the heat pump and its location in the room
• And the location of the out door unit? For example located on the wall that gets all day sun will work
better than one that is in frost all day.
• How much time do you spend in your house? Are you at work all day and out most evenings or do youstay at home during the day and most evenings?

Remember heat pumps are designed to heat only the room they are in. One unit will never heat the whole house although it can lift the ambient temperature in parts of the house.

So once you've had a think about all this remember that there is no such thing as free energy so to get heat out of the pump you will need to put energy into it, yes they are very efficient machines and have impressive C.O.P. (co efficient of performance). The new gas and inverter technology makes this happen even better. With a C.O.P. of 3 you still have to purchase the 1 unit of energy to put into your heat pump so it can turn it into 3 units of heat.

So now have a look at your remote control and depending on how warm you want to be i.e. setting the temperature on the remote control will also factor into the size of the power bill. It is said that human comfort is at 22 ºC, men tend to like it a bit cooler and woman a bit warmer. So how warm do you like to have it? One customer I had asked me about his power bill - $400.00 for the month? The heat pump was set on +26 ºC and it was a very cold day outside he was sitting in his tee-shirt and shorts in the lounge and the room was lovely and warm I had to point out to him as politely as possible that you have to pay for the way you want to live and energy costs money. Be it electricity, wood, coal, oil, gas etc.
So taking all of the above into consideration what are some good ways to stay warm and have a respectable power bill.

Get the heat pump serviced. Moving air is part of air conditioning and dust is in the air. Filters (washed monthly) remove most of the dust but what gets through ends up on the indoor heat exchanger and, as its name suggests, if the air moving over the heat exchanger can not touch transfer fins, energy will not transfer into the air, so the heat will return back to the outdoor unit and will be wasted. Heat pumps in the kitchen-lounge areas get dusty quicker because of the cooking oils in the air.

Setting the Timer. Setting the timer on your remote control can be a bit tricky but once it is done it is like leaving the unit on. Set it to switch on half an hour before you usually get up and off when you usually go to bed.

Heat only one room. Heat only the room that the heat pump is located in. Shut the doors and curtains and set the remote so it cycles once it has reached the set temperature. It will do this easier if it is only heating the air in one room.

When going out. Turn the heat pump off when you go out especially during the day or at least turn it down to it's lowest setting on the remote, when you get back home turn it right up for 20 minutes to get the room back up to
temperature again. Then turn it back to your comfort setting after the room is warmed up.
Heat pump technology is a marvelous thing in our energy conscious world and it is improving all the time. Soon many of us will be heating our domestic hot water using heat pumps which would lead to big savings in the power bill.

Keep warm, cheers Dean.

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