Comment on Heat pumps can't take the cold? Nordics debunk the myth
Magister@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It depends on the model (and the price), I’m in Québec when we have -30°C (-22F) about every winter, my heatpump is mid-range, and works fine until -20C (-4F) so 95% of the time. It is set to 23C (73F) and it’s between 21-23 everywhere in the house. The electric baseboard are set to 21C (70F) as backup.
So yeah, heat pumps can works great in winter, no problem.
NightAuthor@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Makes sense to me that they could theoretically work all the way down to near 0 kelvin, just depends on their efficiency. Just so long as there is heat to be had…
Also, not sure energy star really means much.
applebusch@lemmy.world 1 year ago
They theoretically could, but the coefficient of performance would go below 1 long before you get close to zero Kelvin. That means it would cost more energy to pump the heat than is pumped, so you’d be better off using an electric heater.
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
Not to mention, you’d need a material to pump. R-32 which I believe is the most common at the moment, has a freezing temp of -132, meaning it would be useless at temps near 1K.
NightAuthor@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Ah yes… that’s a very good point. I’m not about to learn a bunch of chemistry and physics and stuff… but I’d be interested in reading about this theoretical optimization if electricity was free, there was no gravity, friction was 0, etc etc etc.