Hey everyone, it’s pinned comment time! And there are some *corrections and clarifications* here. Exciting! First, heat pumps part 1: ruclips.net/video/7J52mDjZzto/видео.html Second, refrigerants! Sloppy script-writing me didn’t catch that I implied CO2 as a refrigerant was the _only_ other option, but it’s not! There have been many climate-friendly refrigerants in use in lots of applications such as isobutane and propane, but the main trouble with these is they go boom sometimes. In larger systems the quantities needed can be dangerous which is why R-1234yf and CO2 as refrigerants are important! Third, heat pump dryers! My explanation into them is, um, well not right. It’s better to think of them as giant dehumidifiers that recirculate air through the drum. Heat slowly builds up, but it’s not really being taken from the room. Instead it’s just the heat created by the compressor being continually recaptured, and a sort of thermal feedback loop forms. The cold surface of the evaporator also pulls the moisture out to be collected. Here’s a video from This Old House that has a great diagram (though the refrigeration cycle’s magicalness of latent heat is pretty much skipped) ruclips.net/video/DeN-h6opueM/видео.html Fourth, I regret saying it's a "myth" that tankless heaters provide instant hot water. More fairly I think it's a misconception. Fifth, I dunno! I’ll add stuff here as we go along. Aren’t pinned comments neat? I love being able to put information right up at the very top for you so you don’t have to waste your time commenting!
R-1234yf is indeed neat, too bad it is patented and thus can't be used as easily as it should be. R-134a is such garbage for the atmosphere. This one patent is contributing to killing the environment. edit: Oh you said that! Nice! There's a comrade in you after all. Patents on stuff like that are a crime against humanity. Patents against medicine and vaccines are also. Maybe we should organize our methods and economic system differently than this.
As a HVACR technician of 27 years, I just want to slap you....on the back and say bravo, and thank you for this extremely well made video. Information that I have been preaching for years.
Forgive the stupid question, if heat pumps can move more energy than they require to run like these videos were claiming then couldn't they be used to say.. heat a container of liquid, spin a steam turbine and then power themselves+ ?
@@nicholass1337 Don't quote me on this but in previous videos I believe TC said the amount of energy needed to make boiling water completely evaporate needs 7x the energy it took to boil it.
@@nicholass1337 No, that violates the laws of thermodynamics. The heat pump effectively "compresses" the heat from the source to the destination (sink). To do what you propose, the heat pump would have to "create" energy.
When I was about 9 we moved into a new home that my dad had designed, built by a local contractor. The primary heating system he had put in was geothermal. The secondary system was an advanced wood furnace. It was able to burn various types of woods at the correct temperature to avoid releasing any harmful particles or gasses. The furnace was only meant as a backup, in case we were to endure any particularly cold winter months and needed any additional hot water. - You see, my father and his 3 brothers had, a little over a decade earlier, taken over the family business, a small company producing looms, workbenches, and conference furniture out of wood. So during wintertime, he would keep a small stockpile of wooden leftovers in case we needed to feed the furnace. - I did obviously get the full story and explanation (several times actually) along with instructions on how to correctly adjust the furnace for the different types of wood. But as a kid, I didn't really think much of it and thought it to be fairly common. It wasn't until much later that I was able to grasp, how far ahead of his time my dad must have been by choosing a geothermal heating system... because the year we moved into that house was 1980.
When you got to the bit about the family wooden furniture business I thought you were going to say, "It was called Ikea", and explain how your dad paid for a custom house.
When I was in HS in the '70s my girlfriend's father "invented" his own geo-based heat pump system. It almost worked! The first time he fired it all up something was obviously not entirely correct because he ended up freezing his lawn solid! A few modifications later and it actually pretty much worked, enough so that they had heat and A/C that actually kept the house pretty comfortable. Not bad for a shipyard welder with no formal HVAC training.
Yes and also geothermal heat pumps kan output alot of cooling with almost no energy consunption with only a fan for the cooler and a pump for the liquid as the ground is about 4c all year around making cheap cooling that uses almost no power compared to having a alrge compressor running also you get most of the heat you take from cooling your house stored in the ground back in the winter when heating.
@@funnypranker34 run pipe in ground shown in video. Pump distilled water through it, a storage tank, and filter. Put the radiator in your heat exchanger and it will work. That radiator stays 65f year round and the AC unit will do just a little extra work to warm up the house 5f in the dead of winter.
Hi! Guy from Finland here. Ground heat pumps have been extremely popular here in the last 15 years. Mostly installed in detached houses and small housing associations.
More like 25 years...i installed first ground heat pump in my summer cottage in -01 and that was allready popular. And nowadays drills have gotten cheaper and better and faster so much do that actual price for drilling is now smallest part in installation .same time actual heatchangers and pumps costs like 1/3 what i paid...and they are way more efficient too. So strange that USA is so much behind things like house insulation .the amount of wasted energy must be huge in states. I have old wooden house but that still has 17" or 45 cm of efficient insulation on walls alone and looking how houses are still build in USA on cold winter belt is amuzing at least.😀
@@hillppari yes but payback time is somewhat half in northern USA what it is like in Finland....when i installed mine i counted that payback time for me was 14 years. Nowadays i also have 4.4kW solar panels also and even for living in Finland im pretty much selfsuffient for 7 months per year.rest colder winter months i have to use "bought" electricity.
@@jkarra2334 so your heat pump won't heat your home in the winter? How cold are your winters? Just asking as winter in my area is weeks of -40. I wondered about a heat pump in cold areas. I guess if a company won't come out to talk prices, then I'm in the wrong area for that.
Hi I'm very late to comment on this video but my FAVORITE use for the heat pump is the combination ice rink/swimming pool building. Western Michigan University has both of them in the same building and the majority of the heat for the pool comes from cooling the ice rink, and I imagine there is a huge industrial heat pump in the building managing both. I just thought it would be nice to share :)
As a professional HVAC service tech, I have to say your videos are absolutely on point even down to the terminology (despite missing accumulators but that's perhaps beyond the scope) but even after about a decade in the field this has been an incredible refresher and I will absolutely be referring future apprentices under my tutelage to these videos.
Thank you for a detailed information about geothermal heating! Our housing cooperative in Finland just finished drilling 42 holes, totalling more than 10 kilometres into the ground to switch from district heating to geothermal heating. We have 138 flats and 9 buildings. We also installed 250 kWp solar panels. At least so far electricity is cheap and fossil fuels very expensive here. Every heating system is required to operate at -29 °C (-20°F) here.
I dare to dream that my housing association here in the Netherlands could one day take the initiative of replacing our gas powered district heating with an underground heat pump system. I can't say I see it happening soon, but our heating costs aren't going down any time soon, so every year we wait is really a waste....
Also the bit at 24:00 too regarding the R-1234yf gas It's quite concerning that as the use of AC increases (Both as AC and as heat pumps), in developing countries they're straight up going to use R-1234a where most require AC In developed countries, R-1234yf still isn't widespread and it'd be great if we could put that in to heat pumps at the very least. I replaced the air con in my car (r-1234a)which in itself has contributed to global warming. I agree that somethings just should not be patentable - Those include things like climate friendly substances and vaccines.
0:27 I like to imagine that Alec spent a large portion of editing time browsing through stock-video sites to find a pair of roof AC units that were explicitly _not_ lined up with each other, or with the rest of the building.
There is absolutely no way to price in "externalities" into the price of any particular energy. Instead, the goofballs that want to do this want to give the money to the state in the form of taxes, as if this will do anything except make it worse. The state spends money on all kinds of stupid and harmful things, like WAR. There is nothing worse for the environment than war. The fact that there are AMERICANS who want to give the US military MORE MONEY to do their shenanigans in the name of global warming is simply stupefying. We all become poorer because energy goes through the roof while the government uses the money to build more weapons of war, installs more troops in places all over the world and worst of all, start new wars.
@@christo930 Taxes are the only system that we have right now to fund infrastructure. I'm sure some of those funds go to the military, but it's all we can do to give back to the people. In other words, taxes aren't the problem. The problem is that we still have a military in 2021.
An alternative take on "You don't hate your heat pump, you hate your thermostat" would be "You don't hate your heat pump, you hate the guy who installed it" If your heat pump seems to break all the time (like several times in one winter) get a different company than the installer to check it.
So true, and to say it again, so true. In the UK, heat pumps are becoming a thing, sadly those installed by builders are becoming a bad thing, because they don't understand heat pumps, so they are designed and installed badly. I have a heat pump, retro-fitted into my home, which was designed and installed very well, and it just works!
@@Muppetkeeper My parents house had one installed when it was built (10-15 years ago now) and they had to make sure it was installed by a proper heat pump installation business. The neighbours had one retrofitted by some handyman and constantly ran into problems for the first year until they got it fixed by the manufacturer
Ditto. Had mine installed bu a reputable company for a mere 1200Euros, and it has just worked flawlessly. It is also fed by electricity of the solar kind more than half of the year. Costs more upfront but it saves so much more in the long run. Especially here in Europe...
In UK there was also a big wave with condensation gas boilers ..which are great improvement in comparison to traditional gas boilers, but the use-case should be carefully selected. Unfortunately....
I also reject the assertion that the thermostat determines how the system works. That's up to the system--the thermostat just measures temperature and dictates the desired temperature. If a manufacturer/installer puts it in the thermostat, well, that's their fault.
I live in an 8 apartment building in Sweden that gets its heat from refrigerant-to-liquid geothermal. We installed it just a few years back so we could throw out the old oil furnace. The unit itself in the basement is really quiet, it saved us huge amounts on heating costs and has been way more reliable. 10/10 would recommend if you can get past the high upfront costs.
For anything but the coldest climates (less than +3C average yearly temp) the latest air heat pump technology is also competing more effectively with geothermal.
Given the cost of Ground Source installation, I’d rather just run Air Source + resistance heating when temperatures drop below Minus 10F. Less expensive .
Hi, You might be able to save even more money if you invest in some solar hot water heating panels, and a few 400L water tanks to store the hot water. Then once the hot water tanks are full of hot water, some of that water can be pumped through a heat exchanger to warm the water going to the geothermal heat pump. The heat pump would much rather use -10C water than to try to get heat from -15 or -20C water. My guess is that by spring time, the water coming out of your geothermal heat pump water loop will be around -15 C or so. By using "Evacuated Tube" solar panels, you can collect heat from the sun, even if the air temperature is -15C outside. I would recommend tilting the solar panels nearly upright (like if mounted on a wall directly) so that they shed snow and are at the ideal tilt setting for winter, as you will collect way to much heat in the summer, and not need any heat to the water loop in the summer. A oil furnace or boiler would be using fuel (like diesel fuel) that will cost around $5 or $6 in America this coming winter, and maybe a lot more in Sweden! To get 100,000 Btu's it takes burning about 1 gallon of oil, or 23 KW of electricity, or using a heat pump only about 7-10 KW of electricity. At your rates, the electric option is the best one! If you still use oil to heat your hot water, my suggestion is to switch to electric hot water heating, or perhaps a heat pump water heater.
I think it isn't enough said by your audience, since most porbably the majority of them are in US. BUT THANK YOU A LOT for converting all the temperatures in Celcius, it helps A LOT for me and all people who watch you outside from US! TNX!
i really appreciate it tbh. i still dont know why US thinks that switching to metric is not a good idea. just please get rid of that outdated system already and start using metric.
@@siliconhawk Plenty of us would love the switch, but... well, it's expensive and inconvenient, and no one wants to be the one to authorize that expense.
@@Nshadowtail i can understand where you are coming from. Any form of large scale change is expensive and comes at a price. But doesn't mean it isn't worth it. Canada also switched from imperial to metric iirc. It was not exactly well recieved as far as i know but its worth it imo everything just becomes way more easier for people IMO. American have some work to do in a lot of places. Like i saw this video of cgp grey about social security number/ID or whatever that was But well all you and i can do is speak and give opinion. The work is upto the government of the day. Anyways it was nice talkin to an American om how they fell on imperial system. Have a nice day 😁
@@siliconhawk You are correct about it not being received well at first, but now? no problem at all. Strange fact, Canadians tend to measure long distances in kms, short distances in feet and inches. Height of a person? Ask a 25 year old native born Canuck how tall they are, and you'll probably get feet and inches. Cooking temps? Often F. Outside temps? always C.
@@jamiemacdonald7870 well most of the time the start of anything new is a bit bumpy. people are not exactly a fan of changing the way they do things. but sooner or later they will get used to it
Big fan of your stuff too! Saw your talk at Ansiblefest 2020 on Github Actions and Ansible (already put some of those concepts into use), bought your Ansible for * book set and they're fantastic. Nice to see you here.
Few feelings are more uplifting than staying until the credits and watching Alec's fall from the pedestal of extremely eloquent and well-spoken content creator to a mumbling bumbling everyday person like the rest of us. Thanks for leaving in the blooper reels!
We are a geothermal heat user since 1992. Amazing units. Also makes our hot water (most of it) and in the summer said hot water is FREE (as in beer) because it is the first place the excess heat from our home is dumped. The heat pump is completely inside the home and the same size as a standard furnace. It's also just as quiet, literally the only thing you can hear is the fan. Here in Western Michigan USA the electric backup heaters have almost never been used. Highly recommended!
You shouldn't be sold by a RUclips personality, you need to have an engineering level assessment of the heating and cooling requirements for your home and make a decision based on real data.
@@otm646 Either I misspoke or you misunderstood. I'm sold on the energy efficiency and usefulness, not on it being a proper solution for my existing home at this moment. Of course more information would go into every home's decisionmaking.
I intern for an HVAC company doing engineering. These videos are amazing. I watched before I started the more heavy stuff because I love this channel, and it helped me in my job. Thank you Alex for amazing content
OK HVAC student ... Why can't the refrigerant have a loop to heat the "heat pump" hot water before it runs to the out door condenser or through the "Water Chiller" nearly every building that has cooling also has a need for heated water
@@YT-Observer You definitely can bundle all of your temperature dependent infrastructure together for efficiency. It's just expensive to reroute everything in an already finished building.
I had a friend who once hooked up their heat pump to their swimming pool during the summer to use as a radiator and it heated the pool and cooled the house. Why don’t we see more setups like this????
This old house has a RUclips video on that setup. I live in Las Vegas, NV where there are a lot of houses with pools and it gets hot. Seems like it would be a common thing.
Most Americans are just too dense and slow to adapt. Too concerned about every cent. There are very few of us who are willing to spend more to get more. (And we are all here, watching these videos lol.
That's a really smart idea, it takes crazy amounts of energy to heat even a litre of water. Give your pool ALL the extra heat in your house in summer, it can take it!
@@tjam4229 America's biggest problem was that it expanded too fast during the early stages of the industrial revolution, where huge centralized power generation was truly the only option available at the time. We were spoiled by a massive infrastructure providing cheap power. Granted, the infrastructure needs an overhaul and our government is far too bloated and corrupt to ever get it fixed... so we'll eventually be forced to decentralize... but for now, the risk vs reward just isn't there for most in the lower to middle classes. It's not that we are too dense, it's just a tough sell... essentially doubling your energy costs for 20 or so years upfront, to see a return afterwards. In many American climates, that's easily how long it would take to pay down a robust geothermal solution... in my area where I typically don't need much air conditioning, it would likely take much longer.
My parents had an underground (drilled) heat pump installed fifteen years ago. It more than paid for itself within 8 years. Now it's just gravy and massively improves their property value. Also cities are often near lakes or oceans, which can be used as a huge heat pump resevoir. Look at what they did in downtown Toronto.
Yep, put most all that stuff in my home after I bought it. Only 2 more years to go for the mortgage to be paid of, that is how long ago that all happened ;-)
The reason the US is behind in most forms of infrastructure tech commonly found in Europe is due to cheap fuel availability causing the delay in adoption. Why change when the cost of upgrade won't be payed back in less than 15-20 years? Until the US sees $9/gal gas and 2-3x home energy bills, the cost/benefit driver isn't there. Unless the US government mandated higher fuel-efficiency and emission standards we'd still all be driving around carbureted engines with no catalytic converters at 12 miles/gal. It's like cheap calories causing the obesity epidemic. Healthy food is more expensive than junk food, so why change? This is why local municipalities can affect change with tax credits on the consumer side to delay larger infrastructure costs for more power plants on the supply side.
Yeah, district heat was how we heated my home when I was a kid more than 40 years ago. Large parts of my city uses district heat and it's fed from industrial waste heat and the recycling station. In my current house it even supplies "never ending" hot water. And my parents have had deep bore geothermal heating för well over a decade.
As a European (Swede to be precise) the facts that surprise me the most are not the "cool ways we can heat our homes", because most of those were ways we're using on a regular basis. But stuff like using propane (or other gases) to heat clothes dryers is weird and shocking to me.
It's all about energy costs and availability. The US has been an oil and gas producer for a century, and they typically use 120v supplies (however modern homes now have 240v for dryers). If you think that's weird look at Japan with their kerosene space heaters, as electricity is expensive and they get some epic blizzards (and power cuts) during the winter.
@@zutaca2825 It probably isn't super dangerous or anything, but to have gas piping in a house feels to me like adding unnecessary risk. And while electricity in some places produce more greenhouse gases than using gas, production of electricity can be improved over time and isn't as dependant on a specific means of production/extraction. And designing products around a specific fuel seems like wasteful R&D when that money for example could be used to improve products running electricity. I'm sorry if I sound ignorant, but I don't see much appeal in using gas. Applications like emergency generators is useful, I guess, but I find it smarter to invest in reliable infrastructure (and such) to reduce the risk of emergencies to begin with.
@@Avantime I had forgotten about the Japanese space heaters, thanks for reminding me. Personally, I think it is madness to have these gases utilized at home. I feel that homes should instead have a UPS and the gases (if used at all) should be converted to electricity at power plants. Right now, that would probably reduce the performance, with more energy being wasted as heat (I suppose), but the majority of that heat could probably be used anyway to heat homes as district heating. This could hopefully at least lead to fewer residential fires. I could of course be overlooking some aspects, but generally I don't see a future in the fossil fueled techonolgies.
Fellow Swede here, agree, seems like gas is used for everything. Also vertical geothermal (bergvärme, translated mountain heat, or probably more correctly bedrock heat) is not very new here at least. Not sure how common it is, due to mentioned upfront cost. Otherwise I have the feeling that air-water heat pumps are the most common method for newer houses and air heatpumps if installing in an older house.
I have a friend with geothermal heat pump on pond loop and ground loop I changed out this year that he ran for more than 30 years with minimal maintenance thumbs up to you imparting KNOWLEDGE to others
3 года назад+170
I was blown away how little heat pump cloth dryers actually cost to operate. It always felt luxury to me to have one, but recently I needed it because of the high humidity from drying clothes. And yeah, you can literally operate it from any outlet. Mine is temporarily in an unused sleeping room and works very well. Incredible how much water it collects from a load, and just thinking about all the water previously was getting onto the walls.
All of these problems become really interesting in the subtropics (most of Australia, Florida etc). You want hot water for your shower but you want air conditioning to cool your house. So an 800w heat pump hot water unit is sitting outside your house chilling the air and heating your water, while an 800w air conditioner is sitting in your bedroom chilling the air and heating the air outside. We need central AC systems with central water heating built in.
Or having a freezer/refrigerator and a water heater. Simply moving heat from the cold box to the hot box is ideal instead of entirely different systems is a better solution. After all, the heat pumped out of the freezer goes into the rest of the house, which then has to be air conditioned away by pumping it to the outside, meanwhile a heating element is used to warm water.
In Europe there are geothermal, residential heat pumps available that dump the heat they extract from chilled water used for air conditioning (in fancoils) into domestic hot water. Once the tank is full of hot water, the heat from the AC is dumped into the ground.
@@theevermind Exactly what I've been thinking on for the last week and searched for "heat pump water heater refrigerator". Then today this RUclips video shows up at the top of my listings. I installed a high SEER Pioneer mini split heat pump last February and with my 5KW main solar and my 1.5KW experimental/backup solar with LiPo4 batteries my annual net energy usage is zero- just have to pay SDG&E BS charges of around $150/yr.
Here in Sundsvall Sweden we have a whole suburban area that is heated up with water pipes underneath the ground from excess heat from a powerplant nearby. That's about 3000 homes heated up or something like that with almost no extra fee. In fact the powerplant nearby was so eagerly telling us neighbors about this at an open house event that it was all their own idea to help the neighborhood being more environmentally friendly. The powerplant nearby is producing something from salt for usage in chemical processes, the powerplant is so hot that the doors are open up all year around to help the workers cope with workspace environment.
@@muzzthegreat Lol! So true! I need to read those books again. I used to read the original trilogy almost every year, back in the 80s and 90s. Wore out my original books, got them on my Newton MessagPad (don't ask), and I think I finally bought them for Kindle.
Can you do an episode on the right to repair movement? It seems like this would be the perfect place to get more people informed on it. Especially now that there is a push for legislation to be put on the books this year by Louis Rossmann
The "heatpumps don't work on the coldest winter days" argument is the same as "how do I transport all my construction tools/furniture/etc on a bike" argument. Yes, heatpumps and bicycles might not work in every single circumstance, but they're greatly beneficial for the vast majority of circumstances in which they do work.
LED traffic lights are brighter and easier to see, last longer and are easier to maintain, cheaper to run and less likely to fail completely resulting in unsafe traffic conditions, BUT SOMETIMES it's a bit cold and they get a bit of snow on them!
Had a similar argument with someone in the comment section of that CFL video who claimed that CFLs and LEDs do not make sense in Canada because the winters are long.
@@reverse_engineered Exactly, LEDs still drop your bill, even during winter. He went on about how we use hydro power so LEDs and CFLs flat out do not make sense. They don't have any disadvantages (they last longer so the price argument is moot), why not use them?
Chiming in from Germany here - we bought a clothes dryer with a heat pump some years ago, use it a lot - A full load on the normal setting runs for about 2 hours on a 400W energy intake - totally fine on a 16A fuse together with the washer (230V system, 2500W washer). A cycle of drying clothes (in the max setting) is about 1kWh. Compared to the old one that was using an electric heater, thats less than a third of the energy. The old dryer averaged 1500W for about 2.5hrs, did raise the room humidity significantly and needed a separate circuit from the washer - or a tighter schedule. We’re very happy that we decided to go and buy that new one, because it wasn’t even that expensive. I don’t know about pricing in the US, but this brand one set us back about 700$ (converted) in 2018. Thanks for pointing out more ways to use heat pumps :).
My grandparents home had a water loop heat pump installed in the early 1980s. It pulled heat from the water that came from the well and presumedly returned heat to the water stream when it was in cooling mode. The only part I thought was odd (and these days would be considered really wasteful) was that if water wasn't being used somewhere else in the home, the heat pump overflowed it outside and into a creek... All that being said, it did work fairly well, and they had wood heating for backup, which was rarely used since we live in western Oregon.
Yeah the open loop systems are the simplest to set up, the problem with returning it to use is keeping it potable (i.e. cold or hot enough to not grow anything, under the right pressure, not contaminated by refrigerants). Even open loops that feed back into the well have to be concerned with this too.
4:57 You're assuming the makers of those heat pumps actually care about not going too rough on the compressor, so it doesn't die an early death. I'm not sure I share that belief.
Funny note about dryers. In my last home (decades ago), the dryer was in the garage, which shared a wall with our livingroom. My husband installed a way to move the vent tube to a hole in the wall in the winter so we could use that warm air, lowering our natural gas bill with heat we were just venting out to the environment previously. (In warm weather the hole was closed and the vent went back to the outside.) This _literally_ saved us when the gas heater broke during a snow event. Yes, running the dryer was expensive but it kept our home (and us) from literally freezing, and the cost to run the dryer for 1.5 days was waaaay cheaper than what the repair company would've charged us for an emergency visit during a snow storm. The house was a 3 bedroom single level but on the smallish side, built in the 40s, so it wasn't like we were trying to heat one of those modern multilevels.
When you got to the geothermal section, i thought, "wait a second, i already have a hold drilled a few hundred feet down... My well!" Yeah, turns out there are geothermal systems on the market that can use well water for their constant temperature source. Neat.
@@PeterVJaspersFayer That'd be a really small well and/or an extreme cold front before that became a possibility. Your heat pump would freeze up before your pump would, so you won't be pushing ice through your pump at any rate.
My Fancy Pants Carrier Infinity system has a thermostat/controller that does exactly what you say! It monitors coefficient and will supplement with "Emergency Heat" when needed, you don't even notice what's going on. It can also take in energy cost data as part of its decision. It's a fantastic system that is so efficient it will even run when my home backup generator is powering the house.
The low tech version is simply to put space heaters around. Have the heat pump supply baseline and augment as needed. Heat only the areas that require it.
I live in Brooklyn NY, and my landlord got a government rebate to switch the whole house over to New split units system. So we got 5 big outside units, 28,000btu each. and I got in my room a 9,000btu indoor until. I'm kinda excited to see in action, it's almost completely installed already, should be working in a couple of days already. My landlord got The Comfort-Aire brand. My next door neighbor also used this gov program to convert his house like a month ago. He also got the same 5 outdoor units, but he got a different brand, Westinghouse. His has been working for like 2 my weeks now, they're loving it. I can't wait to have mine working. Btw I watched your other video on how these heat pumps work, I loved it. It explained a lot to me. And I also loved seeing my neighbors new system have ice building up on it, and I remembered it explanation on how it deals with it, so I actually stood there waiting to see it defrost. And after a couple of minutes, I could hear it shut down then restart, defrosting it in second, then reversing the flow again. I loved seeing it. I even explained it to the new owner. He was amazed by it too. So thanks for enlightening us all
"We should only consider solutions that cover every possible situation" seems to get brought up a lot with expanding bicycles and transit. It's so tiring.
inorite. Obviously the best solution is to use peddle-powered quadracycles that can have electric motors and batteries added and can latch onto trains, busses, or ye olde cables in the streets or overhead catenaries with pantographs.
@@jakeaurod : Look up "Goubau lines" for a superior catenary option. As for latching onto other vehicles, that's not a very good option for the other vehicle, since it's owner or operator can't be certain of everyone else's vehicle maintenance.
Public transit is really hard to justify as a general-case option, which I say as someone who usually has a car, but is currently stuck either walking or getting a taxi (and one of the taxi companies recently went bankrupt!)- I too go to places that could possibly justify public transit, but _first_ I must get _to_ those places (a 30 minute walk one-way!), at which point _I no longer need that same public transit,_ because the areas that could reasonably _justify_ it are physically too small to _need_ it. Public transit is only "easy" to justify if you have a somewhat large area with a "captive population" of possible customers- a small bus line just servicing certain multi-mile shopping districts would be fairly easy to justify, but the average suburb (or even 1930s era housing, in my case!) has too irregular of demand to justify the same, thus forcing actions from those same customers which _undermine_ the potential value of public transit. The only reason why it works out for schools is that the school is paid to transport the students by a large population, thus spreading the cost better than would otherwise be possible. In a factory town where everyone works at the same place, and in areas with high population densities such as New York, you can still get the systems to be self-supporting, but those places are rare in the US, and even where they exist they often are poorly regarded by their users. Public transit has it's uses, but while personal transit can universally replace public transit, public transit can't universally replace personal transit.
@@absalomdraconis yeah, population density and 'captive audience' are big. We have a fairly small city where I live, with subsidized buses that'll get you basically anywhere you want to go. The thing is, the buses run at either 15 or 30 minute intervals depending on the line, and even my seriously overweight butt can bike across town in half an hour. If I use a car it's less then ten minutes... we just lack the physical area or insane traffic to make it the better choice.
(Canada) My home is 2900 ft² two stories and I've been using a heat-pump since 1995. My first pump ran 24/7 for over 20 years, before finally failing. (R-22 refrigerant) My replacement pump (R-104 ?) now does the work. Over 25 years the annual heating cost has been ±37% savings and summer air conditioning to boot ! The room winter heating temperatures are even through out the house. I've used oil furnace as back up but will be changing to an electric furnace some time this year. Had I been smarter back in 1995 I would have gone with the geothermal pump (I have a large property) but that isn't the case. Heat pumps are great ! Always enjoy your videos ! Thanks.
I like the idea! Lets pass the cost of reducing green house gases of which 71% are produced by 100 companies on to the POOR haha BRILLIANT. We can just jack up prices on those least able to afford them and often locked under one system they are to poor to change or influence and force them to shoulder the burden of a climate disaster that is being caused by literally 100 companies. We can even make ourselves look like the good guys while we do it!
@@sethg6157 Technically it would impose the cost on any industry that produce greenhouse gases or have greenhouse gases produced when their product is used, so the top 100 compagny will get 71% of the bill. They can then try to pass the bill to their customers. Maybe some of it will be passed on poor people but it will most probably be distributed according to how much money any individual spends, with a slight downward tilt towards people who already go for green options and an upward one for people who spend more of their money in stuff producing greenhouse gasses, like frequent flyers. But then the cheapest option will probably become the green option at that point. Transforming most goods relying on fossil fuels luxury rather than staples necessary for most people lives. Also, who do you think is gonna get hit the hardest by the climate change? It's gonna be people who can't afford AC in heatwaves and people stuck living in dangerous homes beause of flooding and storms. AKA poor people.
In Norway household thrash that can't be recycled is incinerated as efficiently as possible (landfills are banned, they're horrible for a ton of reasons), and the heat is sent to apartment complexes and other buildings. Should be standard everywhere. Near total carbon capture from the incinerators is also possible (although not common yet), that way you'll get nearly totally clean energy from thrash.
It's the same here in Sweden (except we send the Ash to you...) The district heat- and cooling company in Stockholm are on the way to capture CO2 in 2025.
I know this is an older video, but I figured i'd input my perspective as an automotive technician. Heat pumps are amazing, as you point out with a bit of comedy. For housing, heat pumps make great sense and I never knew there were heat pump water heaters. I want one. As far as automotive goes, why more cars don't use reversible heat pumps, it's nothing to do with reliability. The switching valve is incredibly robust and not prone to damage from vibration, at least not more than the compressors themselves. The main issue with it is complexity. You can't just stick a reversing valve in, when you select heat you then by design lose AC. This means no dehumidification of the air, which makes defrosters far less efficient and also serves to humidify the car. The solution is to install two evaporators or a split row evaporator, one stays AC always and the other can be switched between heat or AC. The method of doing so would require switching the heat/ac section between the condenser or evaporator lines, this is the only way to make such a thing work without even more needless complexity. Since you always need once AC section of the evaporator, you must always have a condenser. This limits the condenser behind the grille of the car to only being a condenser, it can never be the evaporator (or you lose AC and just the two sections in the cabin air box will result in a net zero change in air temp, one cools and the other raises the temp both by the same amount). So the only option is to switch the heat/ac section of the cabin airbox evaporator between the condenser side and the evaporator side. This would result in hot dry air so long as you routed the discharge line to the cabin air box first then to the main condenser. The problem is complexity, now you have not just one evaporator you have two (they can be the same physically assembly but the plumbing must be separate) which means twice the refrigerant lines in the engine bay from the reversing valve which also must be right after the compressor. It means twice the thermal expansion valves, and twice the pressure sensors. All this in an already tight packed space with hardly any room. It could be done, but the complexity just isn't worth the slight energy savings. Especially considering you could just use waste heat from the batteries (if they are producing enough that is) to supplement the electric heater. I love your videos, i'm not trying to nit pick I just wanted to give my input as a professional in the field.
i would nitpick him. he had the ideas i had when i was in highschool, geothermal cooling is where it's at, and combine that with a solar chimneys and you have a nice cooling system, more reliable too and less moving parts.
Aircraft mechanic here. 100% concur. I'm perfectly fine with a coolant-radiator type heater for car heat, as we've been using since time immemorial. And that's another thing I have to rant about, so pardon me on this. It drives me nuts how some cars have electric heaters now. Like *why?!* Why put the extra big strain on your alternator?! It takes far less power to use a fluid radiator to heat your car! Just a blower fan and a powered flow valve! (Some cars don't even have a flow valve ffs just constant flow through it) And you're taking deadly heat away from your engine, and putting it to use!!! Win win! If it ain't broke, don't fvcking fix it. Dang. Ok rant over.
@@davecrupel2817, Some cars with "Instant Heat" option, they have a small electric heater that is used only until the engine is warm enough to provide heat to the passengers. While some are heating just fine in a few minutes, most diesel cars take 5 Km to warm enough to defog the windows. Hybrids can also take longer to warm the passengers, as the engine is normally off for the first couple of miles. My Ford C-Max has a electric heater, because many trips less than 10 miles, the engine hardly runs at all, unless I tell the engine to run. I wish it had a heat pump instead. A heat pump can "Reverse" but the once cold evaporator would be covered with humidity, and that when heated will quickly fog up the windows. So a dedicated hot refrigerant coil and the cooling coil would be needed. A Electric expansion valve would be able to sent hot refrigerant in a variable amount to the hot air heating coil, and variable liquid refrigerant into the evaporator. Also the coil in front of the radiator, it could be used to collect heat, if you used a variable liquid flow into the coil and direct the return line to the compressor suction line. This is what is done now with a Mitsubishi "City" heat pump, they can provide both heating and cooling with the same outdoor compressor unit, that can collect or get rid of heat, depending on what it needs to do. Mitsubishi City units will typically have 6 - 12 indoor coils, and they can each decide to have cooling or heating in each space. They are installed in the dorms of a University that I worked at, and they work great. You might have a computer server room that is constantly in the cooling mode all winter! It will provide heat to the other rooms. So with a Rivian truck, they use a fan to cool the water loop that is cooling the batteries. But once above about 65F, the water loop might get to warm, so they use a cooling compressor to cool the water loop. The hot gas from that compressor should be used to warm the passenger compartment. But I don't know if they use a hot refrigerant coil in their trucks to provide heat. They might be using a electric resistance heater.
I was actually looking for a comment that would address his gripe here, I was wondering what the practical reason for not using heatpumps in EVs might be. Thanks!
@@Kangenpower7 Thats pretty cool they do that with the mitsubishi city system, an excellent idea considering the alternative is a bunch of waste heat in certain areas and a demand for heat in others. As far as Rivian, my buddy works for them. I might ask about that system next time I see him.
Oooh, that heat pump dryer looks amazing! My schedule usually results in my clothes going in the dryer for way too long anyway, so if it takes longer I'm not actually losing anything.
“Turn around, there’s a thing there that can be found! A human skull on the ground!” - Turn Around by They Might be Giants! I’m amazed they are still making albums, they have like 30 already. I wonder if we can get them to make a song about heat pumps.
Talking about trying to heat cities reminds me of Toronto's way of cooling skyscrapers. A company called Enwave pumps water from deep in lake Ontario up and through buildings in the downtown waterfront then back out into the lake.
@@cmmartti thank you for the clarification! I was momentarily panicked about the potential harm to the Lake Ontario ecosystem from all the extra heat, but I feel reassured to know that the waste heat is going into the reservoir not the lake.
I know people leave lame comments like this all the time, but dear god, I LOVEE this video. I had to pause every five minutes to let my brain settle after you've been clarifying solutions to questions that have been in the back of my mind for years, while re-affirming my beliefs that green energy isn't a myth. A few years ago, I was toying with the idea of using the waste heat from room-sized freezers in commercial kitchens to help heat their ovens / deep fryers. Thank you Mr. Connections.
The greater the difference in temperature, the lower your COP. Since deep fryers and ovens need temperatures around 400F, I doubt you'd get a good enough COP to be worth the trouble.
I'm glad to see Alec doesn't need to nearly blow out his colon to summon a card anymore Edit with reference: ruclips.net/video/wh4aWZRtTwU/видео.htmlm15s
Well, releasing a serious video on April 1st is better than proposing to your girlfriend on April 1st. I know someone who did that. The girl thought he was breaking up with her. They are married now, so it worked out.
In Israel, where I live, the boilers are connected to sun batteries on house roofs to heat water in the summer, which is most of the time. The water is circulated over black pipes encased in thin glass front, black rear boxes. It is a great solution for us. edit: You obviously addressed this, but it was my first thought. The bane of commenting before watching the whole video...
Yes, this things are everywhere in southern Europe too. I read article once that this technology was actually developed in USA first... but then mass produced suburbs happened and gas companies who really wanted to sell their gas to everyone come and practically lobbied this technology out of existence in US :D
Yeah direct water heating with solar radiation is a great option in hot climates. However for example in the German Climate, this is often not enough to heat water to a high enough temperature for most of the year, so you can either use it for pre-heating in combination with another heater, which can again be a heat pump, usually the same one used with another heat source in winter. However there are also more expensive "vacuum tube" solar collectors which use vacuum as extremely effective insulation to allow the solar radiation to heat the pipes inside to higher and higher temperatures, which can achieve even boiling temperature for most of the year. They are more expensive however.
@@Basement-Science a friend of mine is building a house and ended up deciding that a heatpump and photovoltaics are a better solution than heatpump, photovoltaics and solar water heating simply due to his house already having way too many pipes everywhere. :-D
@@randomnickify I've read about early solar water heaters. They were developed in southern California first in the late 1800s, and were widely used there through the 1920s. Around then, though, California's oil and gas production shot way up, _and_ electricity got more widely available. Both soon got cheap and reliable enough to mostly drive solar heating out of the market. The US didn't see widespread solar heating again until the 1970s, when the energy crisis made it competitive again. Even some people in colder areas used it as a supplement to gas or electric. ...And it promptly died out again in the '80s when oil and energy prices dropped. Systems were removed as they wore out, and were not replaced.
@@matejlieskovsky9625 I would agree, Photovoltaiks are often going to be better than solar water heating in combination with a heatpump. However solar water heating is more useful in existing installations in combination with oil, gas, wood or similar heating systems.
Preaching to the choir here, brother! When our fuel tank came to its "expiry date" (as far as the insurance company was concerned) we took the plunge and scrapped our oil-fired furnace for a ground-sourced heat pump system. The installers drilled a single 100 meter vertical hole in our back yard for it, and adapted our forced-air ducting. There were government programs that gave us a couple thousand dollars in rebates as an incentive. Much cheaper to run now, and - Yay! - cheap air conditioning in the summer. It's much quieter than our old system and the furnace footprint is about half that of the old system. One difficulty facing suburban home owners is getting the drilling rig into place, but I gather that they (who? I dunno) are working on designing more compact rigs that can fit between houses and into back yards. I asked my wife if our home insurance went down any, since there's no more fuel tank in the basement, but she said it actually went up a little bit because now the market value of the house is higher. I can live with that.
My town actually does district heating from trash incineration, and the town one over does it from fermentation in a sewage treatment plant. There really is an exciting number of options beyond just yeeting mains voltage across a resistor.
@@Halinspark my great grandfather in Romania had a small cellar that he filled with cow manure and it produced more than enough gas during winter to keep the house warm. He sold wood during winter instead of burning it.
I used to rent an office space that had what we call a "heating AC", now I realize it's one of those that are reversible. We used it as little as possible because we thought it would consume way a lot of energy, now I see that I was wrong!
@@witmoreluke And an additional benefit of those wars: The countries the US bombed, can't drill into the ground because they might drill into a first un- and the very detonated warhead in the process.
You have to remember that Alec is kinda young and so when he says something is 'new' its just as likely that its 'new' to him. Heat pumps whether they be air source, lake source, ground source in horizontal fields or vertical drilling with both open or closed loops have all been available here in the US since the early 70s. I remember seeing commercials advertising installation of them in the 80s. They just aren't in use here because most of us have a much more cost effective alternative. As much as Alec might lament the lack of 'regulation' forcing us to use heat pumps, a politician saying "we decree you must pay 2-4x the current cost to heat your home" is gonna have to find a new job shortly thereafter.
Welp, I’ve been skipping a bunch of these videos over the past couple years and boy was this a series I needed. I live in an addition in a home that has always gotten freezing in the winter and boiling in the summer. Two years ago I got a mini split, and I’ve only ever used it frequently as a air conditioner, because I was convinced by an uneducated person that my carbon footprint would be terribly increased by using it instead of gas heating. Now I plan to run it whenever it’s above 35 degrees f. I already loved how effective and quiet this thing is, now I can feel less guilty about it. I also will tell all my solar powered friends that they should absolutely be using that excess power for heat. Also, it makes me kinda incensed how my very green city and neighborhood hasn’t been pushing heat pumps or geothermal at all, but have all sorts of “environmental” initiatives that are way more expensive and way less effective. This is going to become my new soap box.
Carbon dioxide isn't the only refrigerant like that - propane is R290, and people doing diy recharges of existing R22 systems with propane because of the skyrocketing cost of R22 due to phaseout, are not uncommon.
@@machinist7230 I have no problem with carbon dioxide. If it leaks, we'll just breathe fast and, unlike carbon monoxide, out bodies will warn us when the concentration gets dangerous. But a propane leak is another matter. It could leak out and go boom when a relay sparks. Not a pleasant thought.
@@Inkling777 Systems designed for it have leak detectors and can run the fans to make sure that it's mixed with too much air to burn. Currently we limit working use to under 500g of it, about the same as one camping bottle you might have in your cupboard with no safety system. Large heat pump designs for R290 use a heat exchanger to a gloycol loop to run to your indoor unit so that even if it leaks quicky, it can full blast the fan and dissipate that gas to the point it cannot burn no matter the quantity inside it, unlike indoors where a really bad leak might not have enough volume to be mixed enough. But considering how many units have never leaked in their entire lifetime it seems fairly unlikely to be a problem. You also only need half of R-290 as R-134a or R-410a.
This whole heat pump series has been an excuse to make that "I'm pumped for it" joke, wasn't it? WASN'T IT?!? CHOKE ON YOUR CANDOR! Oh, you did. Good. Balance to the universe restored.
I just had a split system (tap water heater plus circulation water heating) air heat pump and it's working splendidly. We've had temperatures down to -20 already this winter and it's kept my 130+ square meter living space warm 20°C. Plus my garage/full cellar at about +13°C. COP has been about 2.5 on average. This in southern Finland, we do get really cold days but not usually very many in a row. I'm planning to build a big solar heater on the southern side of the building, to heat up the cellar. I believe that's where the biggest loss of heat is, currently.
Fun fact: heat pumps are pretty much the norm for EVs in Canada. Models like the Ioniq are marketed as "cold climate", but it's not an option, it's the only model available north of the border. Mostly some old models like the first Leaf, Volt or iMiev lack them, otherwise they're more than commonplace.
Similar for tumble dryers in the UK. Very few of us have tumble dryers, but for those of us who have tumble dryers, very few have non heat pump tumble dryers. Gas tumble dryers are almost impossible to find outside of commercial environments, and heat pump tumble dryers are quite the norm for those of us who have tumble dryers. You can still get non heat pump tumble dryers, however it makes very little financial sense to do so, unless you can get it very cheaply to begin with. If it's £50 or under, non heat pump versions make financial sense, more so if you're not paying the bills. Typically a brand new non heat pump tumble dryer is around £200 or so, and a HP tumble dryer starts at around the £450 mark. As soon as you pay the bills, a HP tumble dryer makes way more sense. Also, every single one of them fit into a 240V socket. I was surprised to hear that only some American HP tumble dryers fit into a 120V supply
I don't have the time to read through all the comments to see if anyone else has brought this to your attention yet (I would hope so, but just in case) many if not most water source heat pumps have hookups where they can also heat your homes hot water (I would assume mostly in the summer when the system is in AC mode). This saves even more energy costs as the hot water heater doesn't have to run as much if the water going into is already warm/hot from the heat pump. Great job on the video's I've been enjoying them.
I always get excited for and think about changing everything in my house to heat pump technology before remembering that I'll likely never be able to afford to buy a house.
Don't worry, it's doesn't stop there. If you own a house, you still get excited about switching to heat pump tech, and then remember you still can't afford it. Especially geothermal.
Just use a reverse cycle window unit. That's what I did when I lived in a rental. Took it with me when I moved. Never understood the attitude of renters that they must live in awful conditions and use the most expensive possible solutions to every problem because their name isn't on the deed.
I have a heat pump, verticle underground, but because i rent and my landlord wont top up the coolant (germany) i have to use electric heaters all winter. Actually those arent up to the task so i have to burn wood too.
I'm buying a home that is all electric and has a heat pump. I was initially concerned about how well they work since I'm in central Ohio. After watching this video and you last one, I'm very confident that my home will stay very warm. You have been a trusted source of information for years and I value everything you say more than any other source
"only solutions which cover every single possible contingency are feasible!" That pretty much sums up every argument against electric vehicles I've heard.
Right, he should consider even popping up a card to his traffic signal video when he says that, because his arguments on why that thinking is problematic is still very relevant
"Why isn't anyone buying my thing that costs 5x as much and works half as well" In pretty much all of these situations engineers just need to keep developing these systems until they become cheap enough for the average person to buy AND reliable enough for daily use. Prototype -> Niche product -> *Consumer product*
During summers, here in Southern California, I find myself cooling my home with electricity, while simultaneously heating my pool with natural gas. Is this not a problem in search of a heat pump solution?
Not really. Pump cold water from the pool into a heat exchanger inside the house, cool inside air with cold water, and they return warmed water into the pool. Quick and cheap.
You’re cooling your home with a heat pump, not resistance electricity. (2) Why do you heat your pool in summer? Socal is frakking hot. I like the cool pool water (which isn’t really cool thanks to the sun; more like 80 degrees).
Before you mentioned it, I didn't know that some dryers needed vents. The dryers here, in switzerland, don't have any kind of ventilation and installing them simply requires to plug them in. So they have either electric resistive heating or heat pumps, right? Ours is a small, cheap one and it still has that energy efficiency sticker on it, which says A++ In search for answers, I combed through various only shops and found that here, they really do only sell heat pump dryers! And I didn't even know! Always found heat pumps to be an amazing invention so it's cool to know. Wouldn't have figured that out without this video, so thank you 😄
Every time you say “if you haven’t watched the previous video” I laugh because even if it’s new I’ve seen it like 4 times. That voice and knowledge is just so nice.
I miss my tankless water heater, not because of instant hot water (which it did not provide), but because of infinite hot water (which it very much did). I really enjoy a long shower, or a shower after a bath.
With capable heat source, tanks with two coils bring the best of both worlds. I have a new solar split system and a gas heater on the top coil manages the on demand heating incredibly well with infinite hot water even in winter.
@@coolGhostVIRUS I take one long shower per week, or sometimes month (the rest of the showers, I'm not washing my long hair, only my body, which takes much less time). I think I can have that much comfort in my life without much guilt.
@@OrigamiMarie I am sorry if it sounded like I'm blaming you, didn't intend it. You should not justify yourself here. It's just that I have a gas heater at home and I can't stop thinking about all of this, when I see it burning. Obviously domestic consumption is a drop in the sea, but I'd still be amazing if there was a way to reclaim some of that energy. For now the hope is with renewables and nuclear.
My dad's a big energy efficiency nut like you. We've had an air source heat pump (that you will be delighted to hear, also works to cool the air all in the same unit!) for years now. We also had a hybrid water heater for years, but the refrigeration section broke and my dad didn't bother to fix it because it made the already cool basement truly frigid. He WANTED to get a ground source heat pump. Unfortunately, regulations prevented him from doing so because we use well water, and if the refrigerant lines broke they could contaminate the water (something to consider in the future when we are talking about alternative refrigerants, I suppose). My dad has the same thought process you do though- if he were to ever build a house again it would be designed with a ground source heat pump from the get go.
i'm so glad people have backed off on incessant april fools jokes the last few years. april fools used to be my all time favorite day of the year, but the internet kind of ruined that. it quickly became "unusable internet day" and it was extremely rare for any of the "jokes" to actually land for me. meanwhile in reality, it was still fun to mess with my friends in real life. i guess the thing that made april fools perfect to me was the moderation and actually tricking someone with a subtle joke.
Several channels I sub to did somethin for april fools; but almost all made it obvs as fuck and just made a short vid bcuz they feel they need to do something cuz its the day 9.9 It does make me rly glad for all the ones that just did normal vids today.
This could be a joke. He wants to eliminate the patents and yet still expect companies to magically spend a lot of money developing new refrigerants that competitors can just copy for free. That is hilarious. If he thinks that is doable, he should just invest his own money.
@@harrkev He specified exactly two possible routes that solve that conundrum you see there and both are effective and are successful. Inccentives and/or government projects are the solution. They wud require one to not live in a capitalistic hellscape that values the maximizing of profits over the environment and the general wellfare of its ppl. But I mean, who lives in such a place truly; it shud be simple to convince any reasonable govt that it is necessary and important to do such to assure for the general warfare of its citizenry. Simply providing a lump sum or even 0.1% of all sales of any products for X yrs (like a patent mite do but without having to put contracts in place and being simply a tax on a set type of product) is a good incentive to get folks to develop new technologies and to improve upon techniques. Tho making it an entirely government funded project wud allow *literally infinite* potential wealth to be spent on such development. Just comes down to whether refrigerators are more important than better missiles. I kno which I wish my tax dollars funded.
With thanks to your videos, I replaced my AC with a heat pump, leaving my propane heat as a backup. And that could not have been better timing given fuel prices.
I am a self-taught refrigeration system designer (Thank you internet!) and I would like to suggest that the reason heat pumps lose efficiency when the outdoor air gets colder is not because there is a lot less heat in the air, the difference between 70f and absolute zero vs the difference between -20F and absolute zero is quite small after all. It is because in the summer we are moving heat from a space that is 70F to a space that is 100F, a difference of 30 degrees. In the winter we are moving heat from a space that is -20F to a space that is 70F, this is a difference of 90 degrees. The efficiency of the compressor (COP) is directly correlated to the pressure increase it needs to produce. The pressure increase correlated to a 90F rise is WAY, WAY, more than the pressure increase correlated to a 20F to 30F. If you want to know the COP potential of a refrigeration system, look at the required temperature DIFFERENCE between the evaporator and the condenser, not so much the actual temperatures.
You’re close… it’s not the difference between the evaporator and the condenser. It’s the difference between the evaporator/condenser and the outside air. In this way the COP at various operating conditions is partially dependent on the temporary of the refrigerant itself.
That has nothing to do with COP though. COP is the ratio of energy output vs energy input. If I have a device that runs off of 2kW, but that can output 10kW of energy, I have a COP of 10/2 = 5. If it's super cold outside, and those 10kW don't suffice to heat my home, it's still a COP of 5. Even though I'm still shivering in my three layers of wool sweaters. The difference between 20°C (293.15K) and 0°C (273.15K) is indeed small in absolute terms, as you correctly pointed out. But that's completely irrelevant: nothing in the entire system depends on absolute zero; it's all about relative temperature differences between the various components that make up the system. Meaning: the temperature difference between the refrigerant in the external heat exchanger and the environment. The larger that gradient, the faster heat can be absorbed by the refrigerant. And THAT determines COP, not how much warmer both temperatures are compared to absolute zero. The rate at which heat is transferred between media is only dependent on their relative temperature differences, NOT on their absolute temperatures.
@@EvenTheDogAgrees The difference between the indoor temperature and the outdoor temperature has everything to do with COP. Both are in the COP formula. What you say about the difference between the evaporating temperature and the load and between the condensing temperature and the load is true. They play a critical roll in HOW MUCH heat is transferred. How much heat is transferred per kW of energy input though is very much a factor of the difference between the evaporating temperature and the condensing temperature.
Another great video! Lots of great information, in a easy to understand format! Changing the heat pump reversing valve with the compressor running (and making a lot noise each defrost) is typical on most home heat pumps, but when I installed my Goodman unit in 2014, I was surprised it does shut off the compressor each time it starts a defrost cycle. Before 2010, I think all of them would change to defrost without wanting to shut off the compressor. But times change. I have been called out to homeowners who just got a heat pump, and they said "It's not doing it right now, but it make a terrible racket about once every 90 minutes". I would describe the racket, they would say "Yes that's it!" I would charge them $125 for the service call and leave. . .. Well make sure it is running normally too, but still charge them for my hour to come out there. With a R-22 heat pump, the typical outdoor refrigerant pressure was only about 30 - 45 PSI when running on a 30 - 45F day, and they did not collect a lot of heat. While my R-410A system can collect a lot of heat and the outdoor refrigerant pressure is fairly high, around 100 PSI. This provides a lot more heat inside, because the compressor heats the R-410 to well over 130F - even on a cold day. So you might hate your heat pump because it is to old, they changed to only allow the installation of R-410 systems after about 2005. I had a temperature alarm on my heat pump to monitor it. Actually a meat temperature sensor, so at 165F the alarm would start beeping, and that only happens when it is around 55F outside, (or warmer) and the heat pump runs more than about 30 minutes in a row, the heat keeps building as it runs longer each cycle, a good thing. Your talking about getting 50F water out of the ground loop heat pump system, 50F is being very optimistic, and if you measure a system in the Chicago area, you might see 40F but likely if you are cooling the loop, by heating your home, the water will come out around 20F temperature range in the winter. Usually after a couple of years, the ground loop will keep getting colder, and the savings will drop every year. The Bore Hole might be providing the warmer output water, by reaching very deep, and collecting heat from a volcano or something well below your home, or from a lot of water to heat exchanger below your home. Typical cold water from the faucet in Chicago is 41F, and that would be the very highest water that you could get from a water loop, when the heating system is not running in the heat mode. In Florida, it is possible to get 65F water from your faucet and water loop too. But after heating a home in Florida for a hour or so, the water loop will be in the 35F to 40F range. I have a Airtemp brand heat pump water heater. It is about the size of a upright window air conditioner, and has a 12,000 Btu compressor in it, just like a portable Air Conditioner would have. It has a 15,000 Btu heat output, so much faster than the typical electric water heater, while using about 1/4 of the electricity, they plug into a 20 amp 120 volt outlet. Airtemp was sold by Chrysler Corporation, and they stopped making Airtemp products in 1979, due to Chrysler almost going bankrupt. So heat pump water heaters have been around a LONG time. It also air conditioned the garage it was mounted in. It supplied about 20F cooler air to the space it is mounted in. Modern heat pump water heaters use way to small of a compressor for my liking. It is something like a 2,200 Btu compressor, about double the size of a refrigerator compressor. So TINY! A 4,500 watt electric heating element is 3.4 Btu's per watt, or about 19,000 Btu;s per hour. Also if mounted in a attic, they will switch to only electric heat if the temperature exceeds the limit, I think it is max compressor run temperature is 125F inlet air temp. They did use carbon dioxide to cool movie theaters back in the 30's but a small leak could cause everyone to fall asleep forever. They also used ammonia to cool the air in theaters too, but that could cause everyone to faint if there was a leak, or trample each other looking for the door. Imagine a gallon of windex sprayed into the air! And the ammonia they used was not diluted by 99% like Windex. So they started to cool the water loop, then use the chilled water loop to cool the theater, thus it became a non-toxic way to cool the air, without danger to anyone. Water chillers are still used today in larger buildings, even though most use refrigerants to cool the water loop, not CO2 or ammonia. There was a company that used a unit that looks like your heat pump, they used CO2 (as a refrigerant) to heat water in a water heater connected to the unit. They produced about 20,000 Btu's per hour, and worked great, but the company went out of business. You can also buy a new refrigerator with CO2 refrigerant in a reach in commercial refrigerator. There is also a company that is making refrigerators using propane as the refrigerant. If you ever see R-290, it is propane, in a very pure type, with no moisture in the propane. The propane boils just like the refrigerant in a normal refrigerator. Another air source heat pump water heater is a Mitsubishi City unit. They typically have a outdoor unit connected to several indoor coils, up to 30 of the indoor units. One indoor unit can be a 13,000 Btu or 30,000 Btu water heater / cooler. I worked on a City Unit that used cold water or hot water to precool or preheat the air in the make up air unit that supplied air to the building, and the heat pumps inside. So with a normal building heating or cooling system, they typically have 10% to 20% make up fresh air, to keep the oxygen levels normal all day long. But with a ductless heat pump like you have in your garage, there is no "Make up air". Fine for your garage, but not for the retirement center where our system was located. We needed to supply about 3,000 CFM of make up air to the 75 rooms in the building, thus the make up air unit with the cold water in the summer, and warmed water in the winter. I think that the Mitsubishi City units will become more popular, especially to heat hot water. They already work great to cool and heat spaces. Restaurants can use a lot of hot water, especially for dish washing.
I'm buying a house up here in Wisconsin and these videos have made me want to replace the systems in my house, especially since they're getting close to the end of their expected useful life anyway, so thanks!
Up until the early 1990s, we had municipal steam heat in Winnipeg. It was part of the electrical generating system, and the heating grid served as the cooling system for the generating system. Three coal fired boilers provided the heat. There were still downtown customers who had to find alternate heat when the grid was shut down for good.
me three! Although I did project manage a 3000 sq ft load bearing straw bale house build with in floor heating and a horizontal loop heat pump. Lots of passive bits involved. I'm intrigued by hillside homes to take advantage off the unchanging heat of below grade earth.
If I can ever afford to build a house, it'll totally have geothermal heating. It'll also have this fireplace called Leivinuuni, which can be used for cooking stews, Christmas ham, maybe even baking bread or pizza? Just for some extra heat, just in case something goes wrong during wintertime. Oh and ofc as a Finnish person I need to have a Sauna in the house. That'll help with heating too.
Honestly NYC and London are at the doorstep of full-on Steampunk with the proliferation of steam infrastructure they had going. London used to use their district steam to power hydraulic cranes at the docks and stuff! Unfortunately all of that is gone.
My father grew up with district heating. His entire house was filled with steam because a valve broke. Not to mention all these old cities with old infrastructure are in HORRIBLE condition. Water main breakages are a constant thing in these old East Coast cities. I live in an East coast city just South of NYC, Philadelphia. The infrastructure is approaching 3rd world status here.
@@christo930 And all those east coasters pay those exorbitant, confiscatory high taxes, and they get nothing for it, and are constantly told that their state/local governments are broke
@@KFanVid There are many and complex reasons for it, but American cities are severely neglected, poorly run and barely functional all while being more expensive than other places. You are going to start seeing this in Europe and Canada and Australia and for the same exact reason.... DIVERSITY! The problems themselves are "many and complex," but they all have a root cause. That cause is diversity. Detroit used to be called the "Paris of the West" and now it is the "Lagos of the West" These cities really started decaying in the 50s and have been more or less ignored ever since with only occasional improvement or repairs. The schools are sub third world for sure. They are not even physically safe.
We live in Pittsburgh and have a heatpump. After moving to a different home for a short time without one, I will personally always prefer a heatpump system. Ours is particularly nice in that the thermostat while not quite as intelligent as dreamed of here, does allow you to step in and say "alright... the pump isn't enough anymore" by turning on Emergency heat mode. We have only ever done this 1 time.
@@MelancholyZeitgeist AAAA tysm for this comment, ive been watching for a while and never noticed but yes there are silly subtitles in previous episodes and it's amazing
We have a weird tumble dryer option in the UK - condenser dryers. It uses normal electrical heating, but then uses a condenser to avoid venting and fills up a water bucket. They are slow and not great, but very handy for installation. Heat pump ones seem a lot better though, going to see if I can buy one now! :)
Ok, so heat pump dryers really are a actually a common option now in the UK and aren't as expensive as I'd feared. Cost about 33% more than a condenser dryer (so ~£400 instead of ~£300) for a basic model.
@@xorsyst1 You will get that money back in no time. I refused to buy a tumble dryer because they were all 2000 watts or more, often 3000 watts. My heat pump tumble dryer is 500 watts maximum, so about 20% of the cost of the other dryers.
@@Muppetkeeper By my calculation, I could save up to about 50p/load, so about 200 loads to make up the difference. Definitely will get one when we need to replace ours, might not be immediately though.
Having had a geothermal heath pump for 20 years, with a 200 yards vertical hole I can only attest to strength of this solution , and I can easily recommend it to others. This costed me around $12000 when installed. Added on to this I use the brine as free cooling in the summer.
![Jack Harlow - Hello Miss Johnson [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Q86_nlRoIGw/mqdefault.jpg)
Hey everyone, it’s pinned comment time! And there are some *corrections and clarifications* here. Exciting!
First, heat pumps part 1:
ruclips.net/video/7J52mDjZzto/видео.html
Second, refrigerants! Sloppy script-writing me didn’t catch that I implied CO2 as a refrigerant was the _only_ other option, but it’s not! There have been many climate-friendly refrigerants in use in lots of applications such as isobutane and propane, but the main trouble with these is they go boom sometimes. In larger systems the quantities needed can be dangerous which is why R-1234yf and CO2 as refrigerants are important!
Third, heat pump dryers! My explanation into them is, um, well not right. It’s better to think of them as giant dehumidifiers that recirculate air through the drum. Heat slowly builds up, but it’s not really being taken from the room. Instead it’s just the heat created by the compressor being continually recaptured, and a sort of thermal feedback loop forms. The cold surface of the evaporator also pulls the moisture out to be collected. Here’s a video from This Old House that has a great diagram (though the refrigeration cycle’s magicalness of latent heat is pretty much skipped)
ruclips.net/video/DeN-h6opueM/видео.html
Fourth, I regret saying it's a "myth" that tankless heaters provide instant hot water. More fairly I think it's a misconception.
Fifth, I dunno! I’ll add stuff here as we go along. Aren’t pinned comments neat? I love being able to put information right up at the very top for you so you don’t have to waste your time commenting!
Ok
The 50's called, they want your haircut back.
Edit: The 70's called too, they want the jacket.
R-1234yf is indeed neat, too bad it is patented and thus can't be used as easily as it should be. R-134a is such garbage for the atmosphere.
This one patent is contributing to killing the environment.
edit: Oh you said that! Nice! There's a comrade in you after all. Patents on stuff like that are a crime against humanity. Patents against medicine and vaccines are also. Maybe we should organize our methods and economic system differently than this.
I don't get what the 'It's the ground; turn around; it's a human sk-' gag at 8:05 is referencing?
Possible solution to refrigerants going boom sometimes is to reduce refrigerant volume by using water-water or air-water heat pumps.
As a HVACR technician of 27 years, I just want to slap you....on the back and say bravo, and thank you for this extremely well made video. Information that I have been preaching for years.
But, if you run the "exhaust" of a natural gas burner though the heatpump evaporator, magic occurs.
they had us in the first half not gonna lie
Forgive the stupid question, if heat pumps can move more energy than they require to run like these videos were claiming then couldn't they be used to say.. heat a container of liquid, spin a steam turbine and then power themselves+ ?
@@nicholass1337 Don't quote me on this but in previous videos I believe TC said the amount of energy needed to make boiling water completely evaporate needs 7x the energy it took to boil it.
@@nicholass1337 No, that violates the laws of thermodynamics. The heat pump effectively "compresses" the heat from the source to the destination (sink). To do what you propose, the heat pump would have to "create" energy.
When I was about 9 we moved into a new home that my dad had designed, built by a local contractor. The primary heating system he had put in was geothermal. The secondary system was an advanced wood furnace. It was able to burn various types of woods at the correct temperature to avoid releasing any harmful particles or gasses. The furnace was only meant as a backup, in case we were to endure any particularly cold winter months and needed any additional hot water.
- You see, my father and his 3 brothers had, a little over a decade earlier, taken over the family business, a small company producing looms, workbenches, and conference furniture out of wood. So during wintertime, he would keep a small stockpile of wooden leftovers in case we needed to feed the furnace.
- I did obviously get the full story and explanation (several times actually) along with instructions on how to correctly adjust the furnace for the different types of wood. But as a kid, I didn't really think much of it and thought it to be fairly common. It wasn't until much later that I was able to grasp, how far ahead of his time my dad must have been by choosing a geothermal heating system... because the year we moved into that house was 1980.
When you got to the bit about the family wooden furniture business I thought you were going to say, "It was called Ikea", and explain how your dad paid for a custom house.
@@fltchr4449 Naah, Ikea originated in Sweden... I'm from Denmark.
My surname is a dead giveaway.
@@Zhixalom I'm sure it's a dead giveaway in Scandinavia, heck maybe even in the Baltic states! But not in the United States, my friend ;)
Your family must be billionaires. Normal people can't afford that man.
@@XDSDDLord haha
Me mentally constructing a perfect home with all of this technology
Same
I googled a local price for a geothermal heat pump and my imagination died.
Haha same. I've already stopped using dishwasher tablets and my percolator because of his videos.
You sound like a caveman
Just wait for him to do a video on passive construction solutions
When I was in HS in the '70s my girlfriend's father "invented" his own geo-based heat pump system. It almost worked! The first time he fired it all up something was obviously not entirely correct because he ended up freezing his lawn solid! A few modifications later and it actually pretty much worked, enough so that they had heat and A/C that actually kept the house pretty comfortable. Not bad for a shipyard welder with no formal HVAC training.
Yes and also geothermal heat pumps kan output alot of cooling with almost no energy consunption with only a fan for the cooler and a pump for the liquid as the ground is about 4c all year around making cheap cooling that uses almost no power compared to having a alrge compressor running also you get most of the heat you take from cooling your house stored in the ground back in the winter when heating.
A compressor improves the heat transfer efficiency
I want the blue prints to it
Your girlfriend's father was Mr. Freeze?
@@funnypranker34 run pipe in ground shown in video. Pump distilled water through it, a storage tank, and filter. Put the radiator in your heat exchanger and it will work. That radiator stays 65f year round and the AC unit will do just a little extra work to warm up the house 5f in the dead of winter.
Hi! Guy from Finland here.
Ground heat pumps have been extremely popular here in the last 15 years. Mostly installed in detached houses and small housing associations.
The same in Sweden... really nothing new either, vertical drilling and heating both the living space and water, for about 40 years.
More like 25 years...i installed first ground heat pump in my summer cottage in -01 and that was allready popular.
And nowadays drills have gotten cheaper and better and faster so much do that actual price for drilling is now smallest part in installation .same time actual heatchangers and pumps costs like 1/3 what i paid...and they are way more efficient too.
So strange that USA is so much behind things like house insulation .the amount of wasted energy must be huge in states.
I have old wooden house but that still has 17" or 45 cm of efficient insulation on walls alone and looking how houses are still build in USA on cold winter belt is amuzing at least.😀
still costs ALOT which is the downside.
@@hillppari yes but payback time is somewhat half in northern USA what it is like in Finland....when i installed mine i counted that payback time for me was 14 years.
Nowadays i also have 4.4kW solar panels also and even for living in Finland im pretty much selfsuffient for 7 months per year.rest colder winter months i have to use "bought" electricity.
@@jkarra2334 so your heat pump won't heat your home in the winter? How cold are your winters? Just asking as winter in my area is weeks of -40. I wondered about a heat pump in cold areas. I guess if a company won't come out to talk prices, then I'm in the wrong area for that.
Hi I'm very late to comment on this video but my FAVORITE use for the heat pump is the combination ice rink/swimming pool building. Western Michigan University has both of them in the same building and the majority of the heat for the pool comes from cooling the ice rink, and I imagine there is a huge industrial heat pump in the building managing both. I just thought it would be nice to share :)
I Like that ….
I just realized that many of my local (Sweden) ice rinks and swimming pools are in the same or neighboring buildings. That is sweet, thanks!
This is very satisfying and clever tbh
A self-contained environment! Virtually no energy wasted!
Me likey!
Wow! That’s so cool! Go Broncos!
As a professional HVAC service tech, I have to say your videos are absolutely on point even down to the terminology (despite missing accumulators but that's perhaps beyond the scope) but even after about a decade in the field this has been an incredible refresher and I will absolutely be referring future apprentices under my tutelage to these videos.
Given the cost of Ground Source installation, I’d rather just run resistance heating when temperatures drop below Minus 10F. Less expensive
.
@@electrictroy2010 If it's installed when the home is built installation cost are negated greatly since your digging the foundations anyway
@@Pegaroo_most people don't build a house they buy one...
@@hello-ef4bn my point is that all new builds should have it done while being built since cost is negligible at that point
Best way into HVAC ?
Thank you for a detailed information about geothermal heating!
Our housing cooperative in Finland just finished drilling 42 holes, totalling more than 10 kilometres into the ground to switch from district heating to geothermal heating. We have 138 flats and 9 buildings. We also installed 250 kWp solar panels. At least so far electricity is cheap and fossil fuels very expensive here. Every heating system is required to operate at -29 °C (-20°F) here.
I dare to dream that my housing association here in the Netherlands could one day take the initiative of replacing our gas powered district heating with an underground heat pump system. I can't say I see it happening soon, but our heating costs aren't going down any time soon, so every year we wait is really a waste....
And how many square meters of apartments in total ?
@@imiy 7500 square meters of apartments and 800 square meters of offices.
@@cristianseres1353 thanks!
Also the bit at 24:00 too regarding the R-1234yf gas
It's quite concerning that as the use of AC increases (Both as AC and as heat pumps), in developing countries they're straight up going to use R-1234a where most require AC
In developed countries, R-1234yf still isn't widespread and it'd be great if we could put that in to heat pumps at the very least. I replaced the air con in my car (r-1234a)which in itself has contributed to global warming.
I agree that somethings just should not be patentable - Those include things like climate friendly substances and vaccines.
0:27 I like to imagine that Alec spent a large portion of editing time browsing through stock-video sites to find a pair of roof AC units that were explicitly _not_ lined up with each other, or with the rest of the building.
Same, knowing his tendency to obsess over small details that HAD to be intentional lol.
Neat.
There is absolutely no way to price in "externalities" into the price of any particular energy. Instead, the goofballs that want to do this want to give the money to the state in the form of taxes, as if this will do anything except make it worse.
The state spends money on all kinds of stupid and harmful things, like WAR. There is nothing worse for the environment than war. The fact that there are AMERICANS who want to give the US military MORE MONEY to do their shenanigans in the name of global warming is simply stupefying. We all become poorer because energy goes through the roof while the government uses the money to build more weapons of war, installs more troops in places all over the world and worst of all, start new wars.
@@christo930 Taxes are the only system that we have right now to fund infrastructure. I'm sure some of those funds go to the military, but it's all we can do to give back to the people. In other words, taxes aren't the problem. The problem is that we still have a military in 2021.
@@christo930 You bring up several fair points, but I would ask what alternative to government regulation and taxation would fix these problems.
An alternative take on "You don't hate your heat pump, you hate your thermostat" would be "You don't hate your heat pump, you hate the guy who installed it"
If your heat pump seems to break all the time (like several times in one winter) get a different company than the installer to check it.
So true, and to say it again, so true. In the UK, heat pumps are becoming a thing, sadly those installed by builders are becoming a bad thing, because they don't understand heat pumps, so they are designed and installed badly. I have a heat pump, retro-fitted into my home, which was designed and installed very well, and it just works!
@@Muppetkeeper My parents house had one installed when it was built (10-15 years ago now) and they had to make sure it was installed by a proper heat pump installation business.
The neighbours had one retrofitted by some handyman and constantly ran into problems for the first year until they got it fixed by the manufacturer
Ditto. Had mine installed bu a reputable company for a mere 1200Euros, and it has just worked flawlessly. It is also fed by electricity of the solar kind more than half of the year. Costs more upfront but it saves so much more in the long run. Especially here in Europe...
In UK there was also a big wave with condensation gas boilers ..which are great improvement in comparison to traditional gas boilers, but the use-case should be carefully selected. Unfortunately....
I also reject the assertion that the thermostat determines how the system works. That's up to the system--the thermostat just measures temperature and dictates the desired temperature. If a manufacturer/installer puts it in the thermostat, well, that's their fault.
I live in an 8 apartment building in Sweden that gets its heat from refrigerant-to-liquid geothermal. We installed it just a few years back so we could throw out the old oil furnace. The unit itself in the basement is really quiet, it saved us huge amounts on heating costs and has been way more reliable. 10/10 would recommend if you can get past the high upfront costs.
For anything but the coldest climates (less than +3C average yearly temp) the latest air heat pump technology is also competing more effectively with geothermal.
i was definitely watching this like... "that's funny. district heating and downhole heat exchange are both common here in sweden"
Given the cost of Ground Source installation, I’d rather just run Air Source + resistance heating when temperatures drop below Minus 10F. Less expensive
.
Hi, You might be able to save even more money if you invest in some solar hot water heating panels, and a few 400L water tanks to store the hot water. Then once the hot water tanks are full of hot water, some of that water can be pumped through a heat exchanger to warm the water going to the geothermal heat pump. The heat pump would much rather use -10C water than to try to get heat from -15 or -20C water. My guess is that by spring time, the water coming out of your geothermal heat pump water loop will be around -15 C or so.
By using "Evacuated Tube" solar panels, you can collect heat from the sun, even if the air temperature is -15C outside. I would recommend tilting the solar panels nearly upright (like if mounted on a wall directly) so that they shed snow and are at the ideal tilt setting for winter, as you will collect way to much heat in the summer, and not need any heat to the water loop in the summer.
A oil furnace or boiler would be using fuel (like diesel fuel) that will cost around $5 or $6 in America this coming winter, and maybe a lot more in Sweden! To get 100,000 Btu's it takes burning about 1 gallon of oil, or 23 KW of electricity, or using a heat pump only about 7-10 KW of electricity. At your rates, the electric option is the best one! If you still use oil to heat your hot water, my suggestion is to switch to electric hot water heating, or perhaps a heat pump water heater.
I think it isn't enough said by your audience, since most porbably the majority of them are in US. BUT THANK YOU A LOT for converting all the temperatures in Celcius, it helps A LOT for me and all people who watch you outside from US! TNX!
i really appreciate it tbh. i still dont know why US thinks that switching to metric is not a good idea. just please get rid of that outdated system already and start using metric.
@@siliconhawk Plenty of us would love the switch, but... well, it's expensive and inconvenient, and no one wants to be the one to authorize that expense.
@@Nshadowtail i can understand where you are coming from. Any form of large scale change is expensive and comes at a price.
But doesn't mean it isn't worth it. Canada also switched from imperial to metric iirc. It was not exactly well recieved as far as i know but its worth it imo everything just becomes way more easier for people IMO.
American have some work to do in a lot of places. Like i saw this video of cgp grey about social security number/ID or whatever that was
But well all you and i can do is speak and give opinion. The work is upto the government of the day. Anyways it was nice talkin to an American om how they fell on imperial system.
Have a nice day 😁
@@siliconhawk You are correct about it not being received well at first, but now? no problem at all. Strange fact, Canadians tend to measure long distances in kms, short distances in feet and inches. Height of a person? Ask a 25 year old native born Canuck how tall they are, and you'll probably get feet and inches. Cooking temps? Often F. Outside temps? always C.
@@jamiemacdonald7870 well most of the time the start of anything new is a bit bumpy. people are not exactly a fan of changing the way they do things. but sooner or later they will get used to it
01:27 - The most cinematic shot of any non-Nest thermostat on video.
Oh hello Jeff! Love your Kubernetes series!
Such a nice shot.
Big fan of your stuff too! Saw your talk at Ansiblefest 2020 on Github Actions and Ansible (already put some of those concepts into use), bought your Ansible for * book set and they're fantastic. Nice to see you here.
Oh wow, Jeff Geerling! Now that's what I call... a Technology Connection. PS: thank you for all your great Ansible roles.
Is this from Jeff, or red shirt Jeff?
26:29 "We've talked about all I wanted to talk about heat pumps"
I have trouble believing that.
X for doubt
i hope thats not true
Very Forrest Gump like
.
Few feelings are more uplifting than staying until the credits and watching Alec's fall from the pedestal of extremely eloquent and well-spoken content creator to a mumbling bumbling everyday person like the rest of us. Thanks for leaving in the blooper reels!
Reminds me of Jackie Chan movies.
With the bonus of lots of tongue action this time.
We are a geothermal heat user since 1992. Amazing units. Also makes our hot water (most of it) and in the summer said hot water is FREE (as in beer) because it is the first place the excess heat from our home is dumped. The heat pump is completely inside the home and the same size as a standard furnace. It's also just as quiet, literally the only thing you can hear is the fan. Here in Western Michigan USA the electric backup heaters have almost never been used. Highly recommended!
The Heat Pump Manufacturer's Guild should really be sponsoring your videos, because I'm sold.
You shouldn't be sold by a RUclips personality, you need to have an engineering level assessment of the heating and cooling requirements for your home and make a decision based on real data.
@@otm646 Either I misspoke or you misunderstood. I'm sold on the energy efficiency and usefulness, not on it being a proper solution for my existing home at this moment. Of course more information would go into every home's decisionmaking.
@@douglasbaker9663 thanks for the clarification.
I intern for an HVAC company doing engineering. These videos are amazing. I watched before I started the more heavy stuff because I love this channel, and it helped me in my job. Thank you Alex for amazing content
Was the line "engineers are SMART!" as funny to you as it was to me? :V
OK HVAC student ... Why can't the refrigerant have a loop to heat the "heat pump" hot water before it runs to the out door condenser or through the "Water Chiller" nearly every building that has cooling also has a need for heated water
@@Hansengineering sometimes engineers are smart, sometime they are clever, but always they are fallible humans. It was quite funny
@@YT-Observer You definitely can bundle all of your temperature dependent infrastructure together for efficiency. It's just expensive to reroute everything in an already finished building.
I had a friend who once hooked up their heat pump to their swimming pool during the summer to use as a radiator and it heated the pool and cooled the house. Why don’t we see more setups like this????
This old house has a RUclips video on that setup. I live in Las Vegas, NV where there are a lot of houses with pools and it gets hot. Seems like it would be a common thing.
Most Americans are just too dense and slow to adapt. Too concerned about every cent. There are very few of us who are willing to spend more to get more. (And we are all here, watching these videos lol.
@@tjam4229 I guess I was asking since I’m Canadian :O
That's a really smart idea, it takes crazy amounts of energy to heat even a litre of water. Give your pool ALL the extra heat in your house in summer, it can take it!
@@tjam4229 America's biggest problem was that it expanded too fast during the early stages of the industrial revolution, where huge centralized power generation was truly the only option available at the time. We were spoiled by a massive infrastructure providing cheap power. Granted, the infrastructure needs an overhaul and our government is far too bloated and corrupt to ever get it fixed... so we'll eventually be forced to decentralize... but for now, the risk vs reward just isn't there for most in the lower to middle classes.
It's not that we are too dense, it's just a tough sell... essentially doubling your energy costs for 20 or so years upfront, to see a return afterwards. In many American climates, that's easily how long it would take to pay down a robust geothermal solution... in my area where I typically don't need much air conditioning, it would likely take much longer.
My parents had an underground (drilled) heat pump installed fifteen years ago. It more than paid for itself within 8 years. Now it's just gravy and massively improves their property value.
Also cities are often near lakes or oceans, which can be used as a huge heat pump resevoir. Look at what they did in downtown Toronto.
So living in europe i am amazed at how many of the things you describe has been everywhere for over 15 years.
Yep, put most all that stuff in my home after I bought it. Only 2 more years to go for the mortgage to be paid of, that is how long ago that all happened ;-)
Reagan
@@Tibyon Reagan
The reason the US is behind in most forms of infrastructure tech commonly found in Europe is due to cheap fuel availability causing the delay in adoption. Why change when the cost of upgrade won't be payed back in less than 15-20 years? Until the US sees $9/gal gas and 2-3x home energy bills, the cost/benefit driver isn't there. Unless the US government mandated higher fuel-efficiency and emission standards we'd still all be driving around carbureted engines with no catalytic converters at 12 miles/gal.
It's like cheap calories causing the obesity epidemic. Healthy food is more expensive than junk food, so why change?
This is why local municipalities can affect change with tax credits on the consumer side to delay larger infrastructure costs for more power plants on the supply side.
Yeah, district heat was how we heated my home when I was a kid more than 40 years ago. Large parts of my city uses district heat and it's fed from industrial waste heat and the recycling station. In my current house it even supplies "never ending" hot water.
And my parents have had deep bore geothermal heating för well over a decade.
Too deep alert should definitely be a recurring ting in future episodes. I love it!
As a European (Swede to be precise) the facts that surprise me the most are not the "cool ways we can heat our homes", because most of those were ways we're using on a regular basis. But stuff like using propane (or other gases) to heat clothes dryers is weird and shocking to me.
It's all about energy costs and availability. The US has been an oil and gas producer for a century, and they typically use 120v supplies (however modern homes now have 240v for dryers). If you think that's weird look at Japan with their kerosene space heaters, as electricity is expensive and they get some epic blizzards (and power cuts) during the winter.
@@Avantime
We've always had 240.
@@zutaca2825 It probably isn't super dangerous or anything, but to have gas piping in a house feels to me like adding unnecessary risk. And while electricity in some places produce more greenhouse gases than using gas, production of electricity can be improved over time and isn't as dependant on a specific means of production/extraction. And designing products around a specific fuel seems like wasteful R&D when that money for example could be used to improve products running electricity.
I'm sorry if I sound ignorant, but I don't see much appeal in using gas. Applications like emergency generators is useful, I guess, but I find it smarter to invest in reliable infrastructure (and such) to reduce the risk of emergencies to begin with.
@@Avantime I had forgotten about the Japanese space heaters, thanks for reminding me. Personally, I think it is madness to have these gases utilized at home. I feel that homes should instead have a UPS and the gases (if used at all) should be converted to electricity at power plants. Right now, that would probably reduce the performance, with more energy being wasted as heat (I suppose), but the majority of that heat could probably be used anyway to heat homes as district heating. This could hopefully at least lead to fewer residential fires. I could of course be overlooking some aspects, but generally I don't see a future in the fossil fueled techonolgies.
Fellow Swede here, agree, seems like gas is used for everything. Also vertical geothermal (bergvärme, translated mountain heat, or probably more correctly bedrock heat) is not very new here at least. Not sure how common it is, due to mentioned upfront cost. Otherwise I have the feeling that air-water heat pumps are the most common method for newer houses and air heatpumps if installing in an older house.
I have a friend with geothermal heat pump on pond loop and ground loop I changed out this year that he ran for more than 30 years with minimal maintenance thumbs up to you imparting KNOWLEDGE to others
I was blown away how little heat pump cloth dryers actually cost to operate. It always felt luxury to me to have one, but recently I needed it because of the high humidity from drying clothes. And yeah, you can literally operate it from any outlet. Mine is temporarily in an unused sleeping room and works very well. Incredible how much water it collects from a load, and just thinking about all the water previously was getting onto the walls.
Theoretically that collected water could be used to flush toilets as well, lowering water bills a smidge
@@BliffleSplick We use all of our captured water, as it's effectively distilled water, which used to be a thing, and used to be expensive!
@@Muppetkeeper It's still a thing, and it's still expensive.
I love mine, can't imagine going back to a conventional dryer ever.
The water was not previously getting into the walls. The conventional dryers all exhaust outside.
Dude you're the hero we don't deserve. Thank you for teaching me SO much stuff.
All of these problems become really interesting in the subtropics (most of Australia, Florida etc). You want hot water for your shower but you want air conditioning to cool your house. So an 800w heat pump hot water unit is sitting outside your house chilling the air and heating your water, while an 800w air conditioner is sitting in your bedroom chilling the air and heating the air outside. We need central AC systems with central water heating built in.
Or having a freezer/refrigerator and a water heater. Simply moving heat from the cold box to the hot box is ideal instead of entirely different systems is a better solution. After all, the heat pumped out of the freezer goes into the rest of the house, which then has to be air conditioned away by pumping it to the outside, meanwhile a heating element is used to warm water.
In Europe there are geothermal, residential heat pumps available that dump the heat they extract from chilled water used for air conditioning (in fancoils) into domestic hot water.
Once the tank is full of hot water, the heat from the AC is dumped into the ground.
@@theevermind Exactly what I've been thinking on for the last week and searched for "heat pump water heater refrigerator". Then today this RUclips video shows up at the top of my listings.
I installed a high SEER Pioneer mini split heat pump last February and with my 5KW main solar and my 1.5KW experimental/backup solar with LiPo4 batteries my annual net energy usage is zero- just have to pay SDG&E BS charges of around $150/yr.
Here in Sundsvall Sweden we have a whole suburban area that is heated up with water pipes underneath the ground from excess heat from a powerplant nearby. That's about 3000 homes heated up or something like that with almost no extra fee. In fact the powerplant nearby was so eagerly telling us neighbors about this at an open house event that it was all their own idea to help the neighborhood being more environmentally friendly. The powerplant nearby is producing something from salt for usage in chemical processes, the powerplant is so hot that the doors are open up all year around to help the workers cope with workspace environment.
“Management was just really bad about marking it when they built the place”
Don’t blame Slartibartfast. He was just responsible for the fjords.
Award Winning . . . during that brief popularity.
@@muzzthegreat Lol! So true! I need to read those books again. I used to read the original trilogy almost every year, back in the 80s and 90s. Wore out my original books, got them on my Newton MessagPad (don't ask), and I think I finally bought them for Kindle.
$HHGTGref = 1
All is right with this comment section.
Very good, carry on.
fnord
@@jonglass The books are fine, but HHG is best experienced in its original format, the BBC radio show.
Can you do an episode on the right to repair movement? It seems like this would be the perfect place to get more people informed on it. Especially now that there is a push for legislation to be put on the books this year by Louis Rossmann
God, please, yes!
Please!
Yes! I'm a "Fixer" at a local Fix-It Fair thing, and there are others around the country, and people need to do them more too!
Fourthing! I'd love to hear his take on this.
Not sure whats stopping you from fixing your own unit. ? If no one sees it ,should be good
The "heatpumps don't work on the coldest winter days" argument is the same as "how do I transport all my construction tools/furniture/etc on a bike" argument. Yes, heatpumps and bicycles might not work in every single circumstance, but they're greatly beneficial for the vast majority of circumstances in which they do work.
LED traffic lights are brighter and easier to see, last longer and are easier to maintain, cheaper to run and less likely to fail completely resulting in unsafe traffic conditions, BUT SOMETIMES it's a bit cold and they get a bit of snow on them!
Had a similar argument with someone in the comment section of that CFL video who claimed that CFLs and LEDs do not make sense in Canada because the winters are long.
@@tomhsia4354 lol, I have all LED and it gets down to -40C here. Works fine.
@@reverse_engineered Exactly, LEDs still drop your bill, even during winter. He went on about how we use hydro power so LEDs and CFLs flat out do not make sense. They don't have any disadvantages (they last longer so the price argument is moot), why not use them?
@@tomhsia4354 What, is he relying on the heat coming off his light bulbs to heat his house???
Chiming in from Germany here - we bought a clothes dryer with a heat pump some years ago, use it a lot - A full load on the normal setting runs for about 2 hours on a 400W energy intake - totally fine on a 16A fuse together with the washer (230V system, 2500W washer). A cycle of drying clothes (in the max setting) is about 1kWh. Compared to the old one that was using an electric heater, thats less than a third of the energy. The old dryer averaged 1500W for about 2.5hrs, did raise the room humidity significantly and needed a separate circuit from the washer - or a tighter schedule. We’re very happy that we decided to go and buy that new one, because it wasn’t even that expensive. I don’t know about pricing in the US, but this brand one set us back about 700$ (converted) in 2018. Thanks for pointing out more ways to use heat pumps :).
My grandparents home had a water loop heat pump installed in the early 1980s. It pulled heat from the water that came from the well and presumedly returned heat to the water stream when it was in cooling mode. The only part I thought was odd (and these days would be considered really wasteful) was that if water wasn't being used somewhere else in the home, the heat pump overflowed it outside and into a creek... All that being said, it did work fairly well, and they had wood heating for backup, which was rarely used since we live in western Oregon.
Yeah the open loop systems are the simplest to set up, the problem with returning it to use is keeping it potable (i.e. cold or hot enough to not grow anything, under the right pressure, not contaminated by refrigerants). Even open loops that feed back into the well have to be concerned with this too.
4:57 You're assuming the makers of those heat pumps actually care about not going too rough on the compressor, so it doesn't die an early death. I'm not sure I share that belief.
Funny note about dryers. In my last home (decades ago), the dryer was in the garage, which shared a wall with our livingroom. My husband installed a way to move the vent tube to a hole in the wall in the winter so we could use that warm air, lowering our natural gas bill with heat we were just venting out to the environment previously. (In warm weather the hole was closed and the vent went back to the outside.) This _literally_ saved us when the gas heater broke during a snow event. Yes, running the dryer was expensive but it kept our home (and us) from literally freezing, and the cost to run the dryer for 1.5 days was waaaay cheaper than what the repair company would've charged us for an emergency visit during a snow storm.
The house was a 3 bedroom single level but on the smallish side, built in the 40s, so it wasn't like we were trying to heat one of those modern multilevels.
I got a lot more enjoyment out of that "They Might be Giants" reference than you can know.
Human skull, on the ground, turn arounnnnnd!
interesting what options would you like about getting more employment if affordable?
When you got to the geothermal section, i thought, "wait a second, i already have a hold drilled a few hundred feet down... My well!" Yeah, turns out there are geothermal systems on the market that can use well water for their constant temperature source. Neat.
Just be careful not to pump TOO much heat out. Ice in you water pump won't do it much good.
@@PeterVJaspersFayer That'd be a really small well and/or an extreme cold front before that became a possibility. Your heat pump would freeze up before your pump would, so you won't be pushing ice through your pump at any rate.
My Fancy Pants Carrier Infinity system has a thermostat/controller that does exactly what you say! It monitors coefficient and will supplement with "Emergency Heat" when needed, you don't even notice what's going on. It can also take in energy cost data as part of its decision. It's a fantastic system that is so efficient it will even run when my home backup generator is powering the house.
The low tech version is simply to put space heaters around. Have the heat pump supply baseline and augment as needed. Heat only the areas that require it.
The Infinity system is amazing. I got mine installed a little less than a year ago and it has been working great!
I live in Brooklyn NY, and my landlord got a government rebate to switch the whole house over to New split units system. So we got 5 big outside units, 28,000btu each. and I got in my room a 9,000btu indoor until. I'm kinda excited to see in action, it's almost completely installed already, should be working in a couple of days already. My landlord got The Comfort-Aire brand. My next door neighbor also used this gov program to convert his house like a month ago. He also got the same 5 outdoor units, but he got a different brand, Westinghouse. His has been working for like 2 my weeks now, they're loving it. I can't wait to have mine working.
Btw I watched your other video on how these heat pumps work, I loved it. It explained a lot to me. And I also loved seeing my neighbors new system have ice building up on it, and I remembered it explanation on how it deals with it, so I actually stood there waiting to see it defrost. And after a couple of minutes, I could hear it shut down then restart, defrosting it in second, then reversing the flow again. I loved seeing it. I even explained it to the new owner. He was amazed by it too. So thanks for enlightening us all
"We should only consider solutions that cover every possible situation" seems to get brought up a lot with expanding bicycles and transit. It's so tiring.
inorite. Obviously the best solution is to use peddle-powered quadracycles that can have electric motors and batteries added and can latch onto trains, busses, or ye olde cables in the streets or overhead catenaries with pantographs.
@@jakeaurod : Look up "Goubau lines" for a superior catenary option. As for latching onto other vehicles, that's not a very good option for the other vehicle, since it's owner or operator can't be certain of everyone else's vehicle maintenance.
Public transit is really hard to justify as a general-case option, which I say as someone who usually has a car, but is currently stuck either walking or getting a taxi (and one of the taxi companies recently went bankrupt!)- I too go to places that could possibly justify public transit, but _first_ I must get _to_ those places (a 30 minute walk one-way!), at which point _I no longer need that same public transit,_ because the areas that could reasonably _justify_ it are physically too small to _need_ it. Public transit is only "easy" to justify if you have a somewhat large area with a "captive population" of possible customers- a small bus line just servicing certain multi-mile shopping districts would be fairly easy to justify, but the average suburb (or even 1930s era housing, in my case!) has too irregular of demand to justify the same, thus forcing actions from those same customers which _undermine_ the potential value of public transit. The only reason why it works out for schools is that the school is paid to transport the students by a large population, thus spreading the cost better than would otherwise be possible. In a factory town where everyone works at the same place, and in areas with high population densities such as New York, you can still get the systems to be self-supporting, but those places are rare in the US, and even where they exist they often are poorly regarded by their users.
Public transit has it's uses, but while personal transit can universally replace public transit, public transit can't universally replace personal transit.
@@absalomdraconis yeah, population density and 'captive audience' are big. We have a fairly small city where I live, with subsidized buses that'll get you basically anywhere you want to go. The thing is, the buses run at either 15 or 30 minute intervals depending on the line, and even my seriously overweight butt can bike across town in half an hour. If I use a car it's less then ten minutes... we just lack the physical area or insane traffic to make it the better choice.
Was this just a pun?
This video reminded me of the casual comment my professor said 20 seconds into day one of my heat transfer class:
"Life is a heat transfer problem."
Mine would say "There's no free lunch"
The quiet, "usually" after, 'you know how pipes don't freeze underground' is hilarious
The house I used to live in had root problems in the pipes and froze really easily 🙃 Was always fun
Well, many places don't bury their water lines below the frost line.
Some winters are colder than others, as they discovered in Texas in February 2021.
@@cmmartti What is a rare conditon to find a frost line, Northern Minnesotan here, just asking.
@@SableDrakon One would think if the water line is not below the frost line, it would freez and burst. Just an idea from Northern Minnesota.
(Canada) My home is 2900 ft² two stories and I've been using a heat-pump since 1995. My first pump ran 24/7 for over 20 years, before finally failing. (R-22 refrigerant) My replacement pump (R-104 ?) now does the work. Over 25 years the annual heating cost has been ±37% savings and summer air conditioning to boot ! The room winter heating temperatures are even through out the house. I've used oil furnace as back up but will be changing to an electric furnace some time this year. Had I been smarter back in 1995 I would have gone with the geothermal pump (I have a large property) but that isn't the case. Heat pumps are great ! Always enjoy your videos ! Thanks.
That "TOO DEEP" alert legitimately cracked me up every time.
The topic - imposing externalized costs - isn't super deep though, just not a good fit for a technology channel.
We need more of these alerts. Then you can use them later as a base for an entirely new video series.
I like the idea! Lets pass the cost of reducing green house gases of which 71% are produced by 100 companies on to the POOR haha BRILLIANT. We can just jack up prices on those least able to afford them and often locked under one system they are to poor to change or influence and force them to shoulder the burden of a climate disaster that is being caused by literally 100 companies. We can even make ourselves look like the good guys while we do it!
Interesting, it is from Star Trek 2 the Wrath of Khan.
@@sethg6157 Technically it would impose the cost on any industry that produce greenhouse gases or have greenhouse gases produced when their product is used, so the top 100 compagny will get 71% of the bill. They can then try to pass the bill to their customers. Maybe some of it will be passed on poor people but it will most probably be distributed according to how much money any individual spends, with a slight downward tilt towards people who already go for green options and an upward one for people who spend more of their money in stuff producing greenhouse gasses, like frequent flyers.
But then the cheapest option will probably become the green option at that point. Transforming most goods relying on fossil fuels luxury rather than staples necessary for most people lives.
Also, who do you think is gonna get hit the hardest by the climate change? It's gonna be people who can't afford AC in heatwaves and people stuck living in dangerous homes beause of flooding and storms. AKA poor people.
In Norway household thrash that can't be recycled is incinerated as efficiently as possible (landfills are banned, they're horrible for a ton of reasons), and the heat is sent to apartment complexes and other buildings.
Should be standard everywhere. Near total carbon capture from the incinerators is also possible (although not common yet), that way you'll get nearly totally clean energy from thrash.
It's the same here in Sweden (except we send the Ash to you...) The district heat- and cooling company in Stockholm are on the way to capture CO2 in 2025.
I love how there was a card flashing on my feed when you said "But sometimes." I know EXACTLY which video it was suggesting.
Which video might that be?
@@somebonehead Traffic lights and the danger of “but sometimes”
I know this is an older video, but I figured i'd input my perspective as an automotive technician. Heat pumps are amazing, as you point out with a bit of comedy. For housing, heat pumps make great sense and I never knew there were heat pump water heaters. I want one. As far as automotive goes, why more cars don't use reversible heat pumps, it's nothing to do with reliability. The switching valve is incredibly robust and not prone to damage from vibration, at least not more than the compressors themselves. The main issue with it is complexity. You can't just stick a reversing valve in, when you select heat you then by design lose AC. This means no dehumidification of the air, which makes defrosters far less efficient and also serves to humidify the car. The solution is to install two evaporators or a split row evaporator, one stays AC always and the other can be switched between heat or AC. The method of doing so would require switching the heat/ac section between the condenser or evaporator lines, this is the only way to make such a thing work without even more needless complexity. Since you always need once AC section of the evaporator, you must always have a condenser. This limits the condenser behind the grille of the car to only being a condenser, it can never be the evaporator (or you lose AC and just the two sections in the cabin air box will result in a net zero change in air temp, one cools and the other raises the temp both by the same amount). So the only option is to switch the heat/ac section of the cabin airbox evaporator between the condenser side and the evaporator side. This would result in hot dry air so long as you routed the discharge line to the cabin air box first then to the main condenser. The problem is complexity, now you have not just one evaporator you have two (they can be the same physically assembly but the plumbing must be separate) which means twice the refrigerant lines in the engine bay from the reversing valve which also must be right after the compressor. It means twice the thermal expansion valves, and twice the pressure sensors. All this in an already tight packed space with hardly any room.
It could be done, but the complexity just isn't worth the slight energy savings. Especially considering you could just use waste heat from the batteries (if they are producing enough that is) to supplement the electric heater.
I love your videos, i'm not trying to nit pick I just wanted to give my input as a professional in the field.
i would nitpick him. he had the ideas i had when i was in highschool, geothermal cooling is where it's at, and combine that with a solar chimneys and you have a nice cooling system, more reliable too and less moving parts.
Aircraft mechanic here. 100% concur.
I'm perfectly fine with a coolant-radiator type heater for car heat, as we've been using since time immemorial.
And that's another thing I have to rant about, so pardon me on this.
It drives me nuts how some cars have electric heaters now. Like *why?!* Why put the extra big strain on your alternator?!
It takes far less power to use a fluid radiator to heat your car! Just a blower fan and a powered flow valve! (Some cars don't even have a flow valve ffs just constant flow through it)
And you're taking deadly heat away from your engine, and putting it to use!!!
Win win!
If it ain't broke, don't fvcking fix it. Dang.
Ok rant over.
@@davecrupel2817, Some cars with "Instant Heat" option, they have a small electric heater that is used only until the engine is warm enough to provide heat to the passengers. While some are heating just fine in a few minutes, most diesel cars take 5 Km to warm enough to defog the windows. Hybrids can also take longer to warm the passengers, as the engine is normally off for the first couple of miles. My Ford C-Max has a electric heater, because many trips less than 10 miles, the engine hardly runs at all, unless I tell the engine to run. I wish it had a heat pump instead.
A heat pump can "Reverse" but the once cold evaporator would be covered with humidity, and that when heated will quickly fog up the windows. So a dedicated hot refrigerant coil and the cooling coil would be needed. A Electric expansion valve would be able to sent hot refrigerant in a variable amount to the hot air heating coil, and variable liquid refrigerant into the evaporator. Also the coil in front of the radiator, it could be used to collect heat, if you used a variable liquid flow into the coil and direct the return line to the compressor suction line. This is what is done now with a Mitsubishi "City" heat pump, they can provide both heating and cooling with the same outdoor compressor unit, that can collect or get rid of heat, depending on what it needs to do. Mitsubishi City units will typically have 6 - 12 indoor coils, and they can each decide to have cooling or heating in each space. They are installed in the dorms of a University that I worked at, and they work great. You might have a computer server room that is constantly in the cooling mode all winter! It will provide heat to the other rooms.
So with a Rivian truck, they use a fan to cool the water loop that is cooling the batteries. But once above about 65F, the water loop might get to warm, so they use a cooling compressor to cool the water loop. The hot gas from that compressor should be used to warm the passenger compartment. But I don't know if they use a hot refrigerant coil in their trucks to provide heat. They might be using a electric resistance heater.
I was actually looking for a comment that would address his gripe here, I was wondering what the practical reason for not using heatpumps in EVs might be. Thanks!
@@Kangenpower7 Thats pretty cool they do that with the mitsubishi city system, an excellent idea considering the alternative is a bunch of waste heat in certain areas and a demand for heat in others. As far as Rivian, my buddy works for them. I might ask about that system next time I see him.
Oooh, that heat pump dryer looks amazing! My schedule usually results in my clothes going in the dryer for way too long anyway, so if it takes longer I'm not actually losing anything.
My aunt has a heat pump drier. She loves the fact that it stops when the clothes are dry, and neither before nor after.
yet again you've done an amazing job of making me incredibly angry at my household appliances. my wife is becoming concerned about my mood swings.
Mechanical engineer here. I absolutely love when you cover topics like this
“Turn around, there’s a thing there that can be found! A human skull on the ground!” - Turn Around by They Might be Giants! I’m amazed they are still making albums, they have like 30 already. I wonder if we can get them to make a song about heat pumps.
Close match: ruclips.net/video/btGu9FWSPtc/видео.html. They just need another chorus about pressure.
Talking about trying to heat cities reminds me of Toronto's way of cooling skyscrapers. A company called Enwave pumps water from deep in lake Ontario up and through buildings in the downtown waterfront then back out into the lake.
@@cmmartti thank you for the clarification! I was momentarily panicked about the potential harm to the Lake Ontario ecosystem from all the extra heat, but I feel reassured to know that the waste heat is going into the reservoir not the lake.
That'll be those chillers my friend
I know people leave lame comments like this all the time, but dear god, I LOVEE this video.
I had to pause every five minutes to let my brain settle after you've been clarifying solutions to questions that have been in the back of my mind for years, while re-affirming my beliefs that green energy isn't a myth. A few years ago, I was toying with the idea of using the waste heat from room-sized freezers in commercial kitchens to help heat their ovens / deep fryers.
Thank you Mr. Connections.
The greater the difference in temperature, the lower your COP. Since deep fryers and ovens need temperatures around 400F, I doubt you'd get a good enough COP to be worth the trouble.
I'm glad to see Alec doesn't need to nearly blow out his colon to summon a card anymore
Edit with reference: ruclips.net/video/wh4aWZRtTwU/видео.htmlm15s
just get a card gun
shoot cards at them
all that practice has been paying off
I'm just glad that the smart guy named alec isn't being a smart alec
He can blow it out doing other things tho ;p
As a HVAC tech in Australia I love how much you know about the switching of a reversing valve. I love it’s brutality 😅
The April Fool's joke in this video is that it's a straight video on the April 1st.
I suppose you are correct, detective cockatiel.
@@TemporalOnline Directive? Never heard of those here yonder. I'm a lawman in the town, pardner, but I'll let it slide this time around.
Well, releasing a serious video on April 1st is better than proposing to your girlfriend on April 1st. I know someone who did that. The girl thought he was breaking up with her. They are married now, so it worked out.
I have seen this same joke at least 5 times today on youtube comments.
Instead of using the word "straight," my husband and I prefer "gaily forward."
Each video you make on heat pumps, the more I fall in love with them. The potential within them is insane!
In Israel, where I live, the boilers are connected to sun batteries on house roofs to heat water in the summer, which is most of the time.
The water is circulated over black pipes encased in thin glass front, black rear boxes.
It is a great solution for us.
edit:
You obviously addressed this, but it was my first thought.
The bane of commenting before watching the whole video...
Yes, this things are everywhere in southern Europe too. I read article once that this technology was actually developed in USA first... but then mass produced suburbs happened and gas companies who really wanted to sell their gas to everyone come and practically lobbied this technology out of existence in US :D
Yeah direct water heating with solar radiation is a great option in hot climates. However for example in the German Climate, this is often not enough to heat water to a high enough temperature for most of the year, so you can either use it for pre-heating in combination with another heater, which can again be a heat pump, usually the same one used with another heat source in winter.
However there are also more expensive "vacuum tube" solar collectors which use vacuum as extremely effective insulation to allow the solar radiation to heat the pipes inside to higher and higher temperatures, which can achieve even boiling temperature for most of the year. They are more expensive however.
@@Basement-Science a friend of mine is building a house and ended up deciding that a heatpump and photovoltaics are a better solution than heatpump, photovoltaics and solar water heating simply due to his house already having way too many pipes everywhere. :-D
@@randomnickify I've read about early solar water heaters. They were developed in southern California first in the late 1800s, and were widely used there through the 1920s. Around then, though, California's oil and gas production shot way up, _and_ electricity got more widely available. Both soon got cheap and reliable enough to mostly drive solar heating out of the market.
The US didn't see widespread solar heating again until the 1970s, when the energy crisis made it competitive again. Even some people in colder areas used it as a supplement to gas or electric. ...And it promptly died out again in the '80s when oil and energy prices dropped. Systems were removed as they wore out, and were not replaced.
@@matejlieskovsky9625 I would agree, Photovoltaiks are often going to be better than solar water heating in combination with a heatpump.
However solar water heating is more useful in existing installations in combination with oil, gas, wood or similar heating systems.
Preaching to the choir here, brother!
When our fuel tank came to its "expiry date" (as far as the insurance company was concerned) we took the plunge and scrapped our oil-fired furnace for a ground-sourced heat pump system. The installers drilled a single 100 meter vertical hole in our back yard for it, and adapted our forced-air ducting. There were government programs that gave us a couple thousand dollars in rebates as an incentive. Much cheaper to run now, and - Yay! - cheap air conditioning in the summer.
It's much quieter than our old system and the furnace footprint is about half that of the old system.
One difficulty facing suburban home owners is getting the drilling rig into place, but I gather that they (who? I dunno) are working on designing more compact rigs that can fit between houses and into back yards.
I asked my wife if our home insurance went down any, since there's no more fuel tank in the basement, but she said it actually went up a little bit because now the market value of the house is higher. I can live with that.
My town actually does district heating from trash incineration, and the town one over does it from fermentation in a sewage treatment plant. There really is an exciting number of options beyond just yeeting mains voltage across a resistor.
My god, poop powered heating. It's genius.
@@Halinspark my great grandfather in Romania had a small cellar that he filled with cow manure and it produced more than enough gas during winter to keep the house warm. He sold wood during winter instead of burning it.
I used to rent an office space that had what we call a "heating AC", now I realize it's one of those that are reversible. We used it as little as possible because we thought it would consume way a lot of energy, now I see that I was wrong!
I love how Alec calls vertical drilling "new" when I've been hearing about it for two decades in Sweden. 💙
Welcome to America! We wage wars so oil can be cheap enough that we don't *need* technological advancements!
It's not really "new" here either, I've seen/heard of some new houses having it installed since the 90's. It's expensive though, so it's not popular.
@@witmoreluke And an additional benefit of those wars: The countries the US bombed, can't drill into the ground because they might drill into a first un- and the very detonated warhead in the process.
You have to remember that Alec is kinda young and so when he says something is 'new' its just as likely that its 'new' to him.
Heat pumps whether they be air source, lake source, ground source in horizontal fields or vertical drilling with both open or closed loops have all been available here in the US since the early 70s.
I remember seeing commercials advertising installation of them in the 80s.
They just aren't in use here because most of us have a much more cost effective alternative.
As much as Alec might lament the lack of 'regulation' forcing us to use heat pumps, a politician saying "we decree you must pay 2-4x the current cost to heat your home" is gonna have to find a new job shortly thereafter.
He didn't say new in the sense that it was a new technology, but as in it's new as an option
Welp, I’ve been skipping a bunch of these videos over the past couple years and boy was this a series I needed.
I live in an addition in a home that has always gotten freezing in the winter and boiling in the summer. Two years ago I got a mini split, and I’ve only ever used it frequently as a air conditioner, because I was convinced by an uneducated person that my carbon footprint would be terribly increased by using it instead of gas heating. Now I plan to run it whenever it’s above 35 degrees f. I already loved how effective and quiet this thing is, now I can feel less guilty about it. I also will tell all my solar powered friends that they should absolutely be using that excess power for heat. Also, it makes me kinda incensed how my very green city and neighborhood hasn’t been pushing heat pumps or geothermal at all, but have all sorts of “environmental” initiatives that are way more expensive and way less effective. This is going to become my new soap box.
sir, you are literally the most effective at describing this, you deserve a medal
But grammar though?
@@loturzelrestaurant on purpose cause relatable though
"Carbon dioxide can actually be used as a refrigerant... Although when you do that, it prefers if you call it R744. It's more polite."
I love you 🤣
Carbon dioxide isn't the only refrigerant like that - propane is R290, and people doing diy recharges of existing R22 systems with propane because of the skyrocketing cost of R22 due to phaseout, are not uncommon.
@@machinist7230 I have no problem with carbon dioxide. If it leaks, we'll just breathe fast and, unlike carbon monoxide, out bodies will warn us when the concentration gets dangerous. But a propane leak is another matter. It could leak out and go boom when a relay sparks. Not a pleasant thought.
Best to use liquified ammonia, if you're cool with her you can call her R717 but if you're not she might burn you
@@Inkling777
Systems designed for it have leak detectors and can run the fans to make sure that it's mixed with too much air to burn. Currently we limit working use to under 500g of it, about the same as one camping bottle you might have in your cupboard with no safety system. Large heat pump designs for R290 use a heat exchanger to a gloycol loop to run to your indoor unit so that even if it leaks quicky, it can full blast the fan and dissipate that gas to the point it cannot burn no matter the quantity inside it, unlike indoors where a really bad leak might not have enough volume to be mixed enough. But considering how many units have never leaked in their entire lifetime it seems fairly unlikely to be a problem. You also only need half of R-290 as R-134a or R-410a.
This whole heat pump series has been an excuse to make that "I'm pumped for it" joke, wasn't it? WASN'T IT?!? CHOKE ON YOUR CANDOR! Oh, you did. Good. Balance to the universe restored.
I just had a split system (tap water heater plus circulation water heating) air heat pump and it's working splendidly. We've had temperatures down to -20 already this winter and it's kept my 130+ square meter living space warm 20°C. Plus my garage/full cellar at about +13°C.
COP has been about 2.5 on average.
This in southern Finland, we do get really cold days but not usually very many in a row.
I'm planning to build a big solar heater on the southern side of the building, to heat up the cellar. I believe that's where the biggest loss of heat is, currently.
"One thing's for sure about the future: I'm pumped for it!"
How dare you.
I laughed out loud at that aswell XD
"I'm pumped for it." I love that face when he said that.
I read this comment first, then watched it in the video later, and still laughed hard.
Fun fact: heat pumps are pretty much the norm for EVs in Canada. Models like the Ioniq are marketed as "cold climate", but it's not an option, it's the only model available north of the border. Mostly some old models like the first Leaf, Volt or iMiev lack them, otherwise they're more than commonplace.
Similar for tumble dryers in the UK. Very few of us have tumble dryers, but for those of us who have tumble dryers, very few have non heat pump tumble dryers.
Gas tumble dryers are almost impossible to find outside of commercial environments, and heat pump tumble dryers are quite the norm for those of us who have tumble dryers. You can still get non heat pump tumble dryers, however it makes very little financial sense to do so, unless you can get it very cheaply to begin with. If it's £50 or under, non heat pump versions make financial sense, more so if you're not paying the bills. Typically a brand new non heat pump tumble dryer is around £200 or so, and a HP tumble dryer starts at around the £450 mark.
As soon as you pay the bills, a HP tumble dryer makes way more sense. Also, every single one of them fit into a 240V socket. I was surprised to hear that only some American HP tumble dryers fit into a 120V supply
I don't have the time to read through all the comments to see if anyone else has brought this to your attention yet (I would hope so, but just in case) many if not most water source heat pumps have hookups where they can also heat your homes hot water (I would assume mostly in the summer when the system is in AC mode). This saves even more energy costs as the hot water heater doesn't have to run as much if the water going into is already warm/hot from the heat pump.
Great job on the video's I've been enjoying them.
I always get excited for and think about changing everything in my house to heat pump technology before remembering that I'll likely never be able to afford to buy a house.
Maybe
Don't worry, it's doesn't stop there. If you own a house, you still get excited about switching to heat pump tech, and then remember you still can't afford it. Especially geothermal.
Just use a reverse cycle window unit. That's what I did when I lived in a rental. Took it with me when I moved.
Never understood the attitude of renters that they must live in awful conditions and use the most expensive possible solutions to every problem because their name isn't on the deed.
And that's actually good for the world.
P.S. You won't be able to afford to travel either. That's also good for the world.
I have a heat pump, verticle underground, but because i rent and my landlord wont top up the coolant (germany) i have to use electric heaters all winter. Actually those arent up to the task so i have to burn wood too.
I live in the southern hemisphere, and I'm glad this series of videos was made facing our winter.
Given the cost of Ground Source installation, I’d rather just run resistance heating when temperatures drop below Minus 10F. Less expensive
.
I can't stop thinking about the Pioneer logo on your unit using the classic Pepsi logo and typeface.
I'm buying a home that is all electric and has a heat pump. I was initially concerned about how well they work since I'm in central Ohio. After watching this video and you last one, I'm very confident that my home will stay very warm. You have been a trusted source of information for years and I value everything you say more than any other source
"only solutions which cover every single possible contingency are feasible!"
That pretty much sums up every argument against electric vehicles I've heard.
Yet when there's no power, gas pumps don't work either.
Right, he should consider even popping up a card to his traffic signal video when he says that, because his arguments on why that thinking is problematic is still very relevant
or against covid restriction, vaccinations or actually most of the public dibate as of lately
He did put it in at 5:38
"Why isn't anyone buying my thing that costs 5x as much and works half as well"
In pretty much all of these situations engineers just need to keep developing these systems until they become cheap enough for the average person to buy AND reliable enough for daily use. Prototype -> Niche product -> *Consumer product*
During summers, here in Southern California, I find myself cooling my home with electricity, while simultaneously heating my pool with natural gas. Is this not a problem in search of a heat pump solution?
Not really. Pump cold water from the pool into a heat exchanger inside the house, cool inside air with cold water, and they return warmed water into the pool. Quick and cheap.
@@jmi5969 In Swindon U.K. there is an Ice Rink and Swimming pool in adjacent buildings doing what you suggest.
You’re cooling your home with a heat pump, not resistance electricity. (2) Why do you heat your pool in summer? Socal is frakking hot. I like the cool pool water (which isn’t really cool thanks to the sun; more like 80 degrees).
Alec, you gotta get some Technology Connection swag featuring heat pumps. You are the face of heat pump advocacy!
Before you mentioned it, I didn't know that some dryers needed vents. The dryers here, in switzerland, don't have any kind of ventilation and installing them simply requires to plug them in.
So they have either electric resistive heating or heat pumps, right?
Ours is a small, cheap one and it still has that energy efficiency sticker on it, which says A++
In search for answers, I combed through various only shops and found that here, they really do only sell heat pump dryers! And I didn't even know!
Always found heat pumps to be an amazing invention so it's cool to know.
Wouldn't have figured that out without this video, so thank you 😄
Am I getting old? This is the most awesome and entertaining content on RUclips at the moment imho. Thanks @technolohy connections!
You aren't getting old. You're getting wise.
Also you are getting old.
Every time you say “if you haven’t watched the previous video” I laugh because even if it’s new I’ve seen it like 4 times. That voice and knowledge is just so nice.
i watch them 5x because im winning at youtube
I miss my tankless water heater, not because of instant hot water (which it did not provide), but because of infinite hot water (which it very much did). I really enjoy a long shower, or a shower after a bath.
With capable heat source, tanks with two coils bring the best of both worlds. I have a new solar split system and a gas heater on the top coil manages the on demand heating incredibly well with infinite hot water even in winter.
I have a heat pump with an electric backup heater which can product infinite hot water. It's just 10 times more expensive.
Imagine dumping all of that tremendous energy literally down the drain. Showers are the champions of energy waste devices.
@@coolGhostVIRUS I take one long shower per week, or sometimes month (the rest of the showers, I'm not washing my long hair, only my body, which takes much less time). I think I can have that much comfort in my life without much guilt.
@@OrigamiMarie I am sorry if it sounded like I'm blaming you, didn't intend it. You should not justify yourself here.
It's just that I have a gas heater at home and I can't stop thinking about all of this, when I see it burning. Obviously domestic consumption is a drop in the sea, but I'd still be amazing if there was a way to reclaim some of that energy. For now the hope is with renewables and nuclear.
My dad's a big energy efficiency nut like you. We've had an air source heat pump (that you will be delighted to hear, also works to cool the air all in the same unit!) for years now. We also had a hybrid water heater for years, but the refrigeration section broke and my dad didn't bother to fix it because it made the already cool basement truly frigid. He WANTED to get a ground source heat pump. Unfortunately, regulations prevented him from doing so because we use well water, and if the refrigerant lines broke they could contaminate the water (something to consider in the future when we are talking about alternative refrigerants, I suppose). My dad has the same thought process you do though- if he were to ever build a house again it would be designed with a ground source heat pump from the get go.
i'm so glad people have backed off on incessant april fools jokes the last few years. april fools used to be my all time favorite day of the year, but the internet kind of ruined that. it quickly became "unusable internet day" and it was extremely rare for any of the "jokes" to actually land for me. meanwhile in reality, it was still fun to mess with my friends in real life. i guess the thing that made april fools perfect to me was the moderation and actually tricking someone with a subtle joke.
I totally agree. I'm now especially not in the mood for April Fools nonsense since my Grandpa died 2 years ago on April 1st.
To be honest I like april fools. But on the internet it mostly boils down to: "We made up this fake product, now talk about us!"
Several channels I sub to did somethin for april fools; but almost all made it obvs as fuck and just made a short vid bcuz they feel they need to do something cuz its the day 9.9
It does make me rly glad for all the ones that just did normal vids today.
This could be a joke. He wants to eliminate the patents and yet still expect companies to magically spend a lot of money developing new refrigerants that competitors can just copy for free. That is hilarious. If he thinks that is doable, he should just invest his own money.
@@harrkev He specified exactly two possible routes that solve that conundrum you see there and both are effective and are successful.
Inccentives and/or government projects are the solution. They wud require one to not live in a capitalistic hellscape that values the maximizing of profits over the environment and the general wellfare of its ppl. But I mean, who lives in such a place truly; it shud be simple to convince any reasonable govt that it is necessary and important to do such to assure for the general warfare of its citizenry.
Simply providing a lump sum or even 0.1% of all sales of any products for X yrs (like a patent mite do but without having to put contracts in place and being simply a tax on a set type of product) is a good incentive to get folks to develop new technologies and to improve upon techniques. Tho making it an entirely government funded project wud allow *literally infinite* potential wealth to be spent on such development. Just comes down to whether refrigerators are more important than better missiles. I kno which I wish my tax dollars funded.
With thanks to your videos, I replaced my AC with a heat pump, leaving my propane heat as a backup. And that could not have been better timing given fuel prices.
I am a self-taught refrigeration system designer (Thank you internet!) and I would like to suggest that the reason heat pumps lose efficiency when the outdoor air gets colder is not because there is a lot less heat in the air, the difference between 70f and absolute zero vs the difference between -20F and absolute zero is quite small after all. It is because in the summer we are moving heat from a space that is 70F to a space that is 100F, a difference of 30 degrees. In the winter we are moving heat from a space that is -20F to a space that is 70F, this is a difference of 90 degrees. The efficiency of the compressor (COP) is directly correlated to the pressure increase it needs to produce. The pressure increase correlated to a 90F rise is WAY, WAY, more than the pressure increase correlated to a 20F to 30F. If you want to know the COP potential of a refrigeration system, look at the required temperature DIFFERENCE between the evaporator and the condenser, not so much the actual temperatures.
You’re close… it’s not the difference between the evaporator and the condenser. It’s the difference between the evaporator/condenser and the outside air.
In this way the COP at various operating conditions is partially dependent on the temporary of the refrigerant itself.
That has nothing to do with COP though. COP is the ratio of energy output vs energy input. If I have a device that runs off of 2kW, but that can output 10kW of energy, I have a COP of 10/2 = 5. If it's super cold outside, and those 10kW don't suffice to heat my home, it's still a COP of 5. Even though I'm still shivering in my three layers of wool sweaters.
The difference between 20°C (293.15K) and 0°C (273.15K) is indeed small in absolute terms, as you correctly pointed out. But that's completely irrelevant: nothing in the entire system depends on absolute zero; it's all about relative temperature differences between the various components that make up the system. Meaning: the temperature difference between the refrigerant in the external heat exchanger and the environment. The larger that gradient, the faster heat can be absorbed by the refrigerant. And THAT determines COP, not how much warmer both temperatures are compared to absolute zero. The rate at which heat is transferred between media is only dependent on their relative temperature differences, NOT on their absolute temperatures.
@@EvenTheDogAgrees The difference between the indoor temperature and the outdoor temperature has everything to do with COP. Both are in the COP formula. What you say about the difference between the evaporating temperature and the load and between the condensing temperature and the load is true. They play a critical roll in HOW MUCH heat is transferred. How much heat is transferred per kW of energy input though is very much a factor of the difference between the evaporating temperature and the condensing temperature.
Another great video! Lots of great information, in a easy to understand format!
Changing the heat pump reversing valve with the compressor running (and making a lot noise each defrost) is typical on most home heat pumps, but when I installed my Goodman unit in 2014, I was surprised it does shut off the compressor each time it starts a defrost cycle. Before 2010, I think all of them would change to defrost without wanting to shut off the compressor. But times change. I have been called out to homeowners who just got a heat pump, and they said "It's not doing it right now, but it make a terrible racket about once every 90 minutes". I would describe the racket, they would say "Yes that's it!" I would charge them $125 for the service call and leave. . .. Well make sure it is running normally too, but still charge them for my hour to come out there.
With a R-22 heat pump, the typical outdoor refrigerant pressure was only about 30 - 45 PSI when running on a 30 - 45F day, and they did not collect a lot of heat. While my R-410A system can collect a lot of heat and the outdoor refrigerant pressure is fairly high, around 100 PSI. This provides a lot more heat inside, because the compressor heats the R-410 to well over 130F - even on a cold day. So you might hate your heat pump because it is to old, they changed to only allow the installation of R-410 systems after about 2005. I had a temperature alarm on my heat pump to monitor it. Actually a meat temperature sensor, so at 165F the alarm would start beeping, and that only happens when it is around 55F outside, (or warmer) and the heat pump runs more than about 30 minutes in a row, the heat keeps building as it runs longer each cycle, a good thing.
Your talking about getting 50F water out of the ground loop heat pump system, 50F is being very optimistic, and if you measure a system in the Chicago area, you might see 40F but likely if you are cooling the loop, by heating your home, the water will come out around 20F temperature range in the winter. Usually after a couple of years, the ground loop will keep getting colder, and the savings will drop every year. The Bore Hole might be providing the warmer output water, by reaching very deep, and collecting heat from a volcano or something well below your home, or from a lot of water to heat exchanger below your home. Typical cold water from the faucet in Chicago is 41F, and that would be the very highest water that you could get from a water loop, when the heating system is not running in the heat mode. In Florida, it is possible to get 65F water from your faucet and water loop too. But after heating a home in Florida for a hour or so, the water loop will be in the 35F to 40F range.
I have a Airtemp brand heat pump water heater. It is about the size of a upright window air conditioner, and has a 12,000 Btu compressor in it, just like a portable Air Conditioner would have. It has a 15,000 Btu heat output, so much faster than the typical electric water heater, while using about 1/4 of the electricity, they plug into a 20 amp 120 volt outlet. Airtemp was sold by Chrysler Corporation, and they stopped making Airtemp products in 1979, due to Chrysler almost going bankrupt. So heat pump water heaters have been around a LONG time. It also air conditioned the garage it was mounted in. It supplied about 20F cooler air to the space it is mounted in.
Modern heat pump water heaters use way to small of a compressor for my liking. It is something like a 2,200 Btu compressor, about double the size of a refrigerator compressor. So TINY! A 4,500 watt electric heating element is 3.4 Btu's per watt, or about 19,000 Btu;s per hour. Also if mounted in a attic, they will switch to only electric heat if the temperature exceeds the limit, I think it is max compressor run temperature is 125F inlet air temp.
They did use carbon dioxide to cool movie theaters back in the 30's but a small leak could cause everyone to fall asleep forever. They also used ammonia to cool the air in theaters too, but that could cause everyone to faint if there was a leak, or trample each other looking for the door. Imagine a gallon of windex sprayed into the air! And the ammonia they used was not diluted by 99% like Windex. So they started to cool the water loop, then use the chilled water loop to cool the theater, thus it became a non-toxic way to cool the air, without danger to anyone. Water chillers are still used today in larger buildings, even though most use refrigerants to cool the water loop, not CO2 or ammonia.
There was a company that used a unit that looks like your heat pump, they used CO2 (as a refrigerant) to heat water in a water heater connected to the unit. They produced about 20,000 Btu's per hour, and worked great, but the company went out of business. You can also buy a new refrigerator with CO2 refrigerant in a reach in commercial refrigerator. There is also a company that is making refrigerators using propane as the refrigerant. If you ever see R-290, it is propane, in a very pure type, with no moisture in the propane. The propane boils just like the refrigerant in a normal refrigerator.
Another air source heat pump water heater is a Mitsubishi City unit. They typically have a outdoor unit connected to several indoor coils, up to 30 of the indoor units. One indoor unit can be a 13,000 Btu or 30,000 Btu water heater / cooler. I worked on a City Unit that used cold water or hot water to precool or preheat the air in the make up air unit that supplied air to the building, and the heat pumps inside. So with a normal building heating or cooling system, they typically have 10% to 20% make up fresh air, to keep the oxygen levels normal all day long. But with a ductless heat pump like you have in your garage, there is no "Make up air". Fine for your garage, but not for the retirement center where our system was located. We needed to supply about 3,000 CFM of make up air to the 75 rooms in the building, thus the make up air unit with the cold water in the summer, and warmed water in the winter.
I think that the Mitsubishi City units will become more popular, especially to heat hot water. They already work great to cool and heat spaces. Restaurants can use a lot of hot water, especially for dish washing.
I'm buying a house up here in Wisconsin and these videos have made me want to replace the systems in my house, especially since they're getting close to the end of their expected useful life anyway, so thanks!
Given the cost of Ground Source installation, I’d rather just run resistance heating when temperatures drop below Minus 10F. Less expensive
.
The funny this is that NYC has some remnant of municipal heat systems in the form of STEAM and it was much more common back in the day
Up until the early 1990s, we had municipal steam heat in Winnipeg. It was part of the electrical generating system, and the heating grid served as the cooling system for the generating system. Three coal fired boilers provided the heat. There were still downtown customers who had to find alternate heat when the grid was shut down for good.
I'd love a video on passive houses!
Me too! I did a high school project on them and I would love a video from someone way cooler than me!
I second this!
me three! Although I did project manage a 3000 sq ft load bearing straw bale house build with in floor heating and a horizontal loop heat pump. Lots of passive bits involved. I'm intrigued by hillside homes to take advantage off the unchanging heat of below grade earth.
If I can ever afford to build a house, it'll totally have geothermal heating. It'll also have this fireplace called Leivinuuni, which can be used for cooking stews, Christmas ham, maybe even baking bread or pizza? Just for some extra heat, just in case something goes wrong during wintertime. Oh and ofc as a Finnish person I need to have a Sauna in the house. That'll help with heating too.
I'll note that New York City already has a ton of infrastructure for district heating, mainly via the use of steam pipes.
Honestly NYC and London are at the doorstep of full-on Steampunk with the proliferation of steam infrastructure they had going. London used to use their district steam to power hydraulic cranes at the docks and stuff! Unfortunately all of that is gone.
My father grew up with district heating. His entire house was filled with steam because a valve broke. Not to mention all these old cities with old infrastructure are in HORRIBLE condition. Water main breakages are a constant thing in these old East Coast cities. I live in an East coast city just South of NYC, Philadelphia. The infrastructure is approaching 3rd world status here.
@@christo930 I live in a 3rd world country, and I need to report that what you're describing is actually 4th world, A.K.A. American infrastructure.
@@christo930 And all those east coasters pay those exorbitant, confiscatory high taxes, and they get nothing for it, and are constantly told that their state/local governments are broke
@@KFanVid There are many and complex reasons for it, but American cities are severely neglected, poorly run and barely functional all while being more expensive than other places.
You are going to start seeing this in Europe and Canada and Australia and for the same exact reason.... DIVERSITY! The problems themselves are "many and complex," but they all have a root cause. That cause is diversity.
Detroit used to be called the "Paris of the West" and now it is the "Lagos of the West"
These cities really started decaying in the 50s and have been more or less ignored ever since with only occasional improvement or repairs. The schools are sub third world for sure. They are not even physically safe.
My parents are about to build their dream home, and I need to show this to them ASAP. Very informative and helpful!
I'm here for all the They Might Be Giants references, among other things. Thank you for once again delivering!
Well...when you're talking about geothermal, everything on the top will just suddenly stop seeming interesting.
We live in Pittsburgh and have a heatpump. After moving to a different home for a short time without one, I will personally always prefer a heatpump system. Ours is particularly nice in that the thermostat while not quite as intelligent as dreamed of here, does allow you to step in and say "alright... the pump isn't enough anymore" by turning on Emergency heat mode. We have only ever done this 1 time.
I like when you mention insulated pipes, validates my career a bit.
lol the subtitles at the end: "Geothermally Smooth Jazz"
You're new aren't you?
You should always turn on the subtitles. Sometimes there's a hidden joke in it.😁
Should rewatch some vids, should you find something funny at the ending. 😉
@@MelancholyZeitgeist AAAA tysm for this comment, ive been watching for a while and never noticed but yes there are silly subtitles in previous episodes and it's amazing
OMG I have to go re-binge this whole channel now
@@lucidattf you're welcome ❤️
We have a weird tumble dryer option in the UK - condenser dryers. It uses normal electrical heating, but then uses a condenser to avoid venting and fills up a water bucket. They are slow and not great, but very handy for installation. Heat pump ones seem a lot better though, going to see if I can buy one now! :)
Ok, so heat pump dryers really are a actually a common option now in the UK and aren't as expensive as I'd feared. Cost about 33% more than a condenser dryer (so ~£400 instead of ~£300) for a basic model.
@@xorsyst1 33% more?
@@bassplaya69er Oops. And I've got a maths degree :D
@@xorsyst1 You will get that money back in no time. I refused to buy a tumble dryer because they were all 2000 watts or more, often 3000 watts. My heat pump tumble dryer is 500 watts maximum, so about 20% of the cost of the other dryers.
@@Muppetkeeper By my calculation, I could save up to about 50p/load, so about 200 loads to make up the difference. Definitely will get one when we need to replace ours, might not be immediately though.
Having had a geothermal heath pump for 20 years, with a 200 yards vertical hole I can only attest to strength of this solution , and I can easily recommend it to others.
This costed me around $12000 when installed.
Added on to this I use the brine as free cooling in the summer.