Compared to traditional fossil fuel heating systems, heat pumps require far less energy to operate. That’s good news for your wallet and our planet.

A heat pump is a system that uses technology similar to refrigerators and air conditioners to extract energy from the atmosphere, ground, or nearby water sources and transfer it to your home. It does so by using a refrigeration cycle to cool the space and then warm it back up.

The concept behind a heat pump is simple: Heat naturally moves to lower-temperature, lower-pressure environments. The heat pump pulls the heat it needs from those environments, a process that is accelerated by its own internal physics.

Heat pumps also use a refrigeration cycle to cool spaces and then heat them back up, all while consuming relatively little energy. Unlike gas furnaces, they do not burn anything to generate heat. Instead, they transfer existing thermal energy from a cool space to a warmer one, using electricity as the power source.

In a nutshell, a heat pump works like this: The outdoor unit has a compressor and a circulating structure of aluminum fins and coils that release or gather heat. The unit also has a fan to blow the air across the aluminum coils and help it reach an ideal temperature. An indoor unit hooks up to a series of ducts and vents in your home, which are connected by a refrigerant line that carries the heat-moving fluid between the two units.

https://architects.zone/what-are-heat-pumps-how-they-work-and-why-you-need-one/ When the system switches to heating mode, a reversing valve changes the direction of flow of the refrigerant. The outdoor coil now has the role of an evaporator and the indoor coil becomes the condenser. The reversal of flows causes the heat pump to extract heat from the surrounding air, even when it’s cold outside.

This transfer of heat is what gives a heat pump its high efficiency rate. It requires significantly less energy than a gas furnace, which can’t achieve the same efficiency in freezing temperatures.

As long as the electricity used to power a heat pump comes from renewables, such as rooftop solar or a cleaner grid, it’s also far less damaging to our planet. Fossil fuel-based heating accounts for 32% of greenhouse gases in New York, according to the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation. The switch to a heat pump can help reduce those emissions, along with leaks of potent planet-heating methane.

Choosing the right heat pump for your home can be confusing. If you’re considering making the switch to a heat pump, your first step should be to find a contractor who is familiar with these systems and has earned the seal of approval from a manufacturer or supplier. This means the contractor is a preferred partner of the manufacturers, and the contractor has access to discounts or other benefits that aren’t available to everyone else. Make sure the contractor is insured and licensed, as well. Then, you can feel confident that your new heat pump will be the best fit for your home’s unique climate and energy needs.