Why Choose a Heat Pump?

It can be a difficult and expensive decision to choose the right heating system for your property. Whether you’re building a new property or looking at options to replace your existing heating system hopefully this article will help you make an excellent choice and choose a heat pump.

What are heat pumps?

Heat pumps takes heat from the air, ground or water and raise the temperature using a compressor and refrigerant circuit.

This heat can then be used in a property to provide heating to:

• domestic hot water
• swimming pools
• Space heating via radiators, convectors or underfloor heating.

Temperatures of up to 55ºC in standard models and 72ºC in higher temperature models can be achieved, but the higher the temperature usually means the higher the running cost.

How much do they cost to run?

The running cost of a heat pump is directly linked to the COP (coefficient of performance.) 

The COP indicates how many kW of heat are produced per kW of electrical input.

Good COP’s are created when the efficiency of the heat pump is high, and more crucially the design of the heating system it is supplying is good.

As a rule the higher the source temperature (ground, air, water) and lower the design temperature (water temperature flowing to the heating system)  The higher the COP and system efficiency.

Why choose a heat pump?

• Heat pumps do not work at the high temperatures that traditional boilers use (flame temperatures around 1950ºC) which will cause wear and tear over time. Instead they use reliable tried and tested technology (the same as your fridge) so have the ability to last a great deal of time.
• Heat pumps use electricity, so if purchased from a 100% renewable electricity supplier can be a great way to reach carbon neutrality.
• We as a country can produce our own electricity, so heat pumps can also reduce our reliance on fossil fuels bought from other countries, making us more self sufficient as a country.