One of the most efficient heating and cooling systems for Southwest Arizona are air-source heat pumps. This most common variety of heat pump uses no fuel other than a modest amount of electricity to provide both heating and cooling year-round. Our winters are seldom cold, and there’s almost always enough heat in the air outdoors to extract for your indoor comfort. In the summer, the heat pump reverses itself and removes the indoor heat, taking it outdoors using technology similar to a central air conditioner.
A heat pump’s two primary components include the outdoor condenser and the indoor air handler. The condenser contains the compressor, coils and fins, as well as a large fan that blows the heat from the refrigerant as it travels through the coils in the cooling mode. The compressor puts the refrigerant under pressure and circulates it into the evaporator coil in the air handler.
The air handler pulls air over the evaporator coil, where the heat exchange takes place, summer and winter. The refrigerant travels back to the compressor, and this cycle continues until your home reaches the thermostat’s setting. Every heat pump has a reversing valve that tells the system which way to send the heat.
Air-source heat pumps have been in use for decades, but new systems offer much more energy efficiency due to engineering advances, including better coil efficiency, thermostatic expansion valves that sense how much refrigerant to compress and send to the evaporator coil, and more efficient motors in both the condenser and air handler.
Heat pumps work well in the winter until temperatures reach the mid to lower 30s. Since our part of the Southwest seldom experiences weather that falls below freezing, the heat pump offers high efficiency, since it can create three times the heat for each unit of energy it uses, unlike fueled furnaces that can’t reach more than 100 percent efficiency. In the summer, the heat pump provides exceptional energy efficiency, as well.
If you would like more information about an air-source heat pump and the many benefits these appliances provide for the Yuma area climate, please contact us at Hansberger Refrigeration & Electric Company. We’ve provided top-notch HVAC services for Southwest Arizona since 1952.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Yuma, Arizona about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about air-source heat pumps and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
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