What is a heat pump?
Heat naturally wants to move from hot environment to a cold environment. A heat pump is a device that can move heat opposite the direction it naturally wants to move using electricity. When a hotter material comes into contact with a colder one, the temperature difference causes heat to move from hot to cold. This principle can be applied to heating and cooling homes with high efficiency using heat pumps.
What are the different types of heat pumps?
There are 2 common types: air-to-air or air-source (ASHP) and ground-source heat pumps (GSHP). ASHPs transfer heat between the air outside and inside the home, and GSHPS transfer heat between the ground and inside the home. Both types of heat pumps are renewable because they run on electricity rather than on traditional fossil fuels.
What type of heat pumps does Dandelion install?
At Dandelion, we exclusively install geothermal water-to-air GSHPs. Geothermal means that we heat and cool your home using heat from the earth. Water-to-air means that we transfer heat from the water-filled ground loops to the air ducts inside your home. This means that ductwork is necessary for the Dandelion system to heat and cool your home. Finally, ground-source heat pump means that we’re sourcing heat from underground.
GSHPs are overall more efficient than ASHPs, which draw heat from the air outside. Since weather and temperature change daily above ground, air-source heat pumps will always have to work harder than ground-source heat pumps do. In other words, in terms of cost and efficiency, air-source heat pumps ASHPs are no match for GSHPs, their ground-source counterparts.
