When my husband and I moved from the north to the south, we had never heard of a heat pump.
We’d always lived in an area where the winter weather was severe and required an extremely powerful heating system.
We never bothered with central cooling for the brief summer season. Once we’d had enough of temperatures down to 25 below zero, endless amounts of snow and ungodly high heating bills, we started looking for a house to buy in an area with a warmer climate. We noticed that the majority of these homes were equipped with a heat pump. I did some research and learned that a heat pump provides both heating and cooling capability. The system is set up a lot like a conventional air conditioner in that it moves heat from one location to another. During the summer, it extracts heat from the indoor air and pumps it outside by way of refrigerant. When the weather turns cooler, the heat pump literally reverses the process to pull ambient heat from the outdoor air. It compresses this heat to a higher temperature and delivers it indoors. The process is exceptionally quiet, clean and safe. A heat pump runs on electricity, so there’s no combustion byproducts such as fumes, carbon monoxide or greenhouse gases. This type of system is environmentally friendly and great for indoor air quality. A heat pump effectively combats humidity, won’t overly dry the air, and filters contaminants out of the air. The newer heat pumps on the market include adaptable speed technology which allows the system to automatically speed up or slow down according to the changing demands of the home.