How does a heat pump function?

Answer 1

The simple analogy I use when teaching HVAC classes to describe an "air-to-air Heat Pump" goes like this:

Think of a window air conditioner. When it runs, it blows cold air into your room, and hot air outdoors. What it's actually doing is transferring the heat from your room to outside.
What if you could turn the window air conditioner around in cold weather? Then it would blow the warm air that used to go outdoors into your room, while it "air conditioned" the outside.
That's how a Heat Pump works. It doesn't physically move the components of the air conditioner around, but it reverses the direction of refrigerant flow so that it "air conditions" the outdoors while heating your house.


The HVAC Veteran