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Common Questions About Heating, Ventilation and Cooling
What is a Heat Pump?
A heat pump is essentially a machine that moves heat from one place to the other in order to achieve a specific goal. Although the phrase in itself is essentially an oxymoron because many of the objects that use a heat pump do not actually produce heat as the end result, the heat pump does use heat to make the object work.
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There are many examples of where a heat pump can be found. Refrigerators, freezers, air conditioners, and drinking fountains all have heat pumps inside them. The heat pump creates the energy is needed for all of those things to work. For example, in the back of a refrigerator a heat pump circulates the water and the heat, generally working as a condenser and as a compressor. The energy that is helped being created by the heat pump is used by the refrigerator to cool the food inside it. In this way, freezers also use heat pumps but at a greater rate than normal refrigerators do.
Other uses of the heat pump include water heaters and swimming pools. One may not think about a swimming pool using a heat pump, but sometimes it can be used to set the water to a certain temperature before it's emptied into the pool. Also, water heaters and boilers are used, and their purpose is to essentially heat the water needed to circulate heat throughout one's house. These water boilers and heaters also use the heat pump technology, warming the house to a desired temperature.
Although there are many uses designed for a heat pump in today's world, many people may not think of them too much because they are often hidden behind or inside the objects that we use on a regular basis. However, heat pumps are a valuable resource and machine to mankind, and without it, where would we be?