Choosing a geothermal heat pump for your home means you’ve selected what is probably the cleanest, most efficient and most economical source of residential heating and cooling. Geothermal heating and cooling can slash your monthly home comfort costs by a substantial percentage, often half or more. The heat pump’s efficiency may sound like magic, but it’s based on a relatively simple concept.
What Heat Pumps Do
Heat pumps work by capturing heat and moving it from place to place. A heat pump doesn’t have to burn fuel to create heat. Instead, it uses electrical power to move heat into or out of your home to produce heating and cooling. In a geothermal model, the heat pump uses the ground outside your home as a place to absorb and release heat.
Geothermal Heat Pump Function
Heat capture and release in a geothermal system is accomplished in a series of pipes or tubes, called the loop, buried underground at a depth where the temperature stays about the same all year long. The loop is connected to the indoor heat pump unit and to additional components such as heat exchangers and air handlers.
The indoor heat pump circulates water or a water/antifreeze solution through the loop pipes. When providing cooling, the heat pump pulls heat out of your home and transfers it to the liquid inside the loop. The heated liquid circulates outdoors, where the heat it contains is dispersed into the soil surrounding the loop pipes. Cooled air created by this process is distributed to your home by the air handling system.
When generating heating, the cycle works in reverse. Heat is captured from the ground outside and is brought into your home, where heat exchangers transfer it to conditioned air that is used to heat your home.
Bass Air Conditioning Company serves heating and air conditioning customers in and around the communities of Fayetteville, Dunn, Spring Lake, Raeford, Hope Mills and Lumberton, North Carolina. Contact us today for more information on the benefits of a geothermal heat pump and to find out if one is right for your home.
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