What is a heat pump and how does it work?

The most basic description is that it is a way of saving a fortune on heating. Typically, for every Kilowat of power you use to drive a heat pump you will obtain around 3.5 Kilowatt of heat.

It was back in the 1940's that an engineer, Robert Webber, first built a heat pump and he did it solely for his own use. He found that his freezers were creating a lot of heat in the room they were housed in and he used that air to fuel his heat pump.

It is a fact that heat can be transferred from one thing or place to another, but heat is energy which can never be destroyed. It is this heat transfer that is used with any heat pump.

Thanks to our sun, there is heat all round us all year round and heat pumps are just a way of harvesting this heat. If you take a large volume of air and force it into a much smaller container the temperature in the container will rise dramatically and this is the what makes a heat pump work.

The 'fuel' for a heat pump is most commonly regular outside air, but it doesn't have to be. With piping it is possible to extract heat from either the ground or water and similarly the resultant heat generated at the compressor can be used to generate indoor heat to the air or to your water system.

Many people with swimming pools these days use heat pumps to heat their pools and given the fact that for each Watt of energy used in driving the heat pump you receive three or four from a heat pump it will pay for itself easily.

We are accredited suppliers of heat pumps in the UK and are recognized by professional bodies as well as the building industry. You can see our accreditations by clicking this link