Heat Pumps | Chapel Hill NC

Parts of North Carolina just got hit with a winter storm, which means SNOW! And cold temperatures. We want to make sure you’re as warm as possible this winter. Assisting both residential and commercial clients, we provide heating, air conditioning repairs, installation, and maintenance, and more for your home or office. If you want HVAC Burlington, NC service that is quick, competitively priced, and easy to request – contact Barber Heating & Air now. We have the products and services you need in Burlington, NC and surrounding areas. 

The perfect winter day is cold and frosty outside, and wonderfully warm inside. But only if your heating system is efficient enough to warm your home comfortably—otherwise, you might need your woolly hat, gloves, and scarf in your living room, too. 

What is a Heat Pump?

Heat pumps use electricity and refrigerant to generate heat, while furnaces burn fuel to supply heat. As part of a heating and cooling system, heat pumps use air from outside the home or the constant temperature of the earth to generate heating or cooling. A furnace, on the other hand, burns fuel to warm the air in your home.

Types of Heat Pumps

There are two main types of heat pumps. The most common is the air-source heat pump. Less common (but more efficient, and therefore more expensive), is the geothermal heat pump. 

Air-Source Heat Pumps

Heat pumps can provide both heating and cooling. They work by transferring hot air either into your home to warm it or drawing it out of your home to cool it. 

This type of system uses a thermodynamic principle known as heat transfer. Using electricity as a power source, these units take air from the outside and pass it over a series of refrigerant-filled coils. The refrigerant coils absorb the heat from the air (even if the air is cold) and, as the liquid refrigerant starts to warm up, it evaporates and, in its gaseous form, is passed to a compressor. 

In the compressor, the gas is placed under high pressure, which increases the temperature dramatically. The heated refrigerant then moves to the second series of coils where the heat is transferred from the gas into the air where it warms your home. The refrigerant travels back to the outer coils to start the cycle all over again. 

In summer, the cycle is reversed to provide cold air rather than hot.

Geothermal Heat Pumps

Geothermal heat pumps work on the same heat transfer principle, but they use the ground outside or a body of water such as a lake or a well as their heat source. 

Geothermal heat pumps are more efficient in colder climates and provide more heat in very cold areas. This is because the temperature of the earth is relatively constant, as is the temperature of deep water, whereas air-source heat pumps are at the mercy of the air temperature and weather conditions, which impact efficiency and heat output.