- cross-posted to:
- technology@slrpnk.net
- cross-posted to:
- technology@slrpnk.net
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Europe is in the process of replacing it’s gas boilers with heatpumps. I wouldn’t be surprised if many people will take the opportunity to install a heatpump that is also capable of cooling the house (i.e. an airconditioner) during a heatwave.
That’s what I did in my house earlier this year, and given that we are approaching our third heatwave already I don’t regret that decision.
That’s only an option if you live in a house. About 50% of all Europeans live in an apartment.
Even if you live in a house, it’s still quite a costly investment to do right, the building needs to be properly insulated and heat pumps are preferably used with underfloor heating. The cheaper heat pumps make quite some noise, which often exceeds the noise limits when living in terraced houses.I know it’s worth it in the end, but I can totally imagine many people chosing an air conditioner as they are prevalent, low cost and mature, even if the solution is not perfect.
Air conditioners are heat pumps.
Air-to-Air heatpumps (i.e. AC) are trivial to install in apartments (drill one inch hole in wall, mount compressor on one side and head unit on other, done,) and make for very efficient heating in winter just as much as they can be used for cooling in summer.
building needs to be properly insulated and heat pumps are preferably used with underfloor heating.
Which is less than ideal for cooling; best place for cooling is in the ceiling.
Cooling in hot humid weather also requires getting rid of excess humidity.
Another aspect is one needs first the insulation before building heating or cooling. Otherwise it would be an inefficient system, and it would also be far larger than needed.
I live in an apartment, and I installed airconditioning
An apartment is just a house where you also happen to have neighbours above and below you as well. There is no reason why an AC shouldn’t work in an apartment.
The biggest struggle is updating the rules of your home-owners association to allow for the installation of an external unit, but once that exists all tenants can freely install ACs as they please.
(In my case the rules specify that the external unit needs to be placed on the balcony on the east side of the building)
I agree, and when split units are not possible people will still buy the technically inferior single unit systems. My post was related to OP who mentioned people will choose heat pumps (replacing conventional heating) over air conditioners.
That’s not what I said though. I said people would opt for a heatpump that is also capable of cooling, in other words and air conditioner.
Airconditioners are (air-to-air) heatpumps
The specific solution for heating/cooling a home might be different for different types of housing. But air-to-air heatpumps are a very interesting way to replace the water boiler as the main method of heating your home.
And as a bonus you can use it to cool your home in summer.
Why would it not be possible in an apartment?
A heat pump capable of replacing conventional heating is possible in an full apartment block, not in a single apartment. If you rent an apartment, you aren’t going to dismantle steel radiators attached to the central heating system of the building. Many people just have to deal with what the apartment block owner provides. Installing an air conditioner just for cooling is an easier alternative.
That depends on the type of heating you’re replacing and has nothing to do with it being in an apartment or a house. I have a heatpump in an apartment.
You’re thinking about specific type of central heating that’s probably popular in your part of Europe. Europe is big, Different countries build apartments in different ways.
Fair enough. I’m thinking about radiators in central apartment block heating systems which are common in Germany, Austria, Czechia, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Switzerland and Luxembourg.
Don’t include Romania in this - we already have AC. The weather currently getting everyone in north-west Europe highly exercised is a mild summer day in Romania. I assume this is also true of Bulgaria.
Fair enough. That’s roughly 350 million people. You said 50% of people in EU live in apartments so what you said applies to about 170 million people. That’s ~1/3 of EU. I would say ~2/3 of people getting AC and/or heatpumps still counts as a revolution. But that’s nitpicking and really besides the point. Some people will not be able to upgrade, sure. Some people will install AC in their apartment and use it for heating during winter as pretty much all units they sell now do both. New buildings may also adapt to the new reality and stop installing building wide heating systems, even in the countries you listed. I think it’s obvious things will change and even if half of Europe will not be affected for now it doesn’t mean some sort of revolution is not happening.
Absolutely. My point is not that nothing is going to happen. It’s that many will choose the more common and flexible air conditioners over heat pumps sold to fully replace conventional heating as well.
My heatpump basically cools my house as it uses cool ground water to cool the house down. We have a ground loop system, i think its called in english. Downstairs and on the first floor it keeps it around 21 degrees, even when its 35 degrees outside. However for longer periods of really hot weather an airco system would help especially upstairs and in the attic
That’s basically two units in one or how does it work?
AC is a heatpump. pumping heat from inside to outside. “Heatpump” is also a heatpump. pumping from outside in. The only difference is fluid flow direction.
Hence only thing needed to turn one to other is 4 way valve changing the flow direction/order of refrigerant.
These days atleast in Europe, good luck finding “heat pump”, that doesn’t have 4 way selector valve. Early on there was single direction heat pumps and cooling was extra feature only on upmarket models. These days it is “oh right it also has cooling, handy”. The valve is not that expensive, so it is pretty standard by now.
Not sure if I get it entirely. With classical heatpump (and by this I mean the one for heating) the external unit expands the refrigerant, so it absorbs the heat from air. If it was used for AC, then it should compress it instead. But if I understand properly (doubt) 4 way valve, I would require an unit that either compress it outside or expands it inside.
No, it only needs to do one and you flow it in reverse.
The pump compresses the gas, this increases its temperature, but maintains it as a gas. The liquid goes by a coil and a fan blows on it. The air blowing on there transfers heat from the gas to the air. The air blown by this fan is hot, as it contains the heat that was removed from the gas. Due to the temperature drop the gas condenses into a liquid. The liquid goes by a one way valve where it’s allowed to expand, this decreases the temperature but it remains a liquid. The liquid goes by a coil, similar to the other one, but this time the fan transfers heat from the air into the liquid and converts it back into a gas while blowing cold air.
Now if you think of this as 3 different pieces, a central one with the pump and expansion valve, and two coils it’s easy to understand that if you just connect the coils in reverse the one that was heating now cools and vice versa. So all you need is to have the central piece be connected to a valve that allows it to switch which coils connect to which side and you’re done.
4 way valve is 4 way exactly so the compressor can essentially switch sides on the cycle. It also shifts around where the expansion valve is located in cycle. thus switching the tasks of the inside and outside radiators/heatexchangers.
And modern AC’s can heat as well.
A heatpump to heat the home (which is commonly referred to as a heatpump) and a heatpump to cool the home (which is commonly referred to as airconditioning) are effectively the same thing but run in reverse.
All a heatpump does is move heat from one place to another. For heating you move heat from the outside to the inside, and for cooling you move it in reverse.
Airconditioners (which are just heatpumps) often have a valve which allow you to reverse the flow. That is why most air conditioners can be used for both heating and cooling without the need for any significant amount of extra hardware.
As a bonus, because a heatpump moves heat rather than generating heat, they heat the home by 4-6 kWh of heat energy for 1 kWh of electricity they consume. (This ratio is the referred to as the COP-value, and you can look it up for all ACs. They usually list separate COP values for heating and cooling)
This makes them significantly cheaper to run than gas boilers, even if gas is significantly cheaper per kWh than electricity is.
No.
A lot more people are thinking about one now, but as soon as demand rises, prices go up and everywhere you hear someone shout “shortage”. And then that was that.
In the Netherlands there were 63 thousand aircos in houses ten years ago, last year it was 1,7 million. In total there are 2,2 million aircos in buildings - ten times more than ten years ago.
You could call this a revolution, I think.
Maybe it won’t happen next year, but in ten or twenty years from now, the amount of households with AC in Europe will have increased dramatically.
Ah, the “delayed revolution” 😄
Several of my friends here in Sweden has gotten one this year, they’re more common in smaller shops too and I see them much more often just looking at apartment buildings I go past. They’re definitely already being sold a lot.
