Non-native English speaker, but I looked it up the other day and it seems that pedantically an A/C only cools things down and heat pumps can both heat and cool.
ACs are just heat pumps where they forgot to install the reversing valve.
Heat pumps running in heating mode are basically ACs that are trying to cool down the outside. The fundamental technology just moves heat from one place to another, leaving one place warmer and one place colder.
This is also how fridges and freezers work - they have heat pumps that pump out the heat from inside their box and as such make the room they are in warmer.
It’s why it’s so annoying that dual function AC/Water CH don’t seem to exist (or at least, they don’t qualify for government subsidies).
In the summer, I’d like 3KWH of cooling. And in the winter, maybe 15KWH of heating. But to do that, I have to buy two boxes.
Yes, an air conditioner is a heat pump with a fixed orientation, what basically equates to a handful of valves to switch the direction of the refrigerant. The actual expensive parts that generate the temperature difference are identical between the two machines.
In my country, air conditioners can condition air that’s too cold. Sounds like American air conditioners can only condition in one direction. Our air conditioners do all of the air conditioning.
Nope AC at least where I have been can do both. Heat pumps are for water.
There are also heat pumps that only heat. It takes a second valve or so to enable it to switch directions.
At least in North America, the term “Air conditioner” means a device designed to cool a room, where a “heat pump” can cool or heat that room. They work by the same exact principle (all the compressing, condensing, evaporating stuff) but a “heat pump” has a method of running in both directions. You could probably contrive one that could run the pump in either direction but I think most use a valve to switch which is the high pressure/hot side and which is the low pressure/cold side.
I grew up in a house with a heat pump, I currently live in one with an air conditioner and a furnace. When it’s time to replace my air conditioner (or do other heavy maintenance to the system) I’m going to look into a heat pump, with the furnace as a backup heater in lieu of strips.
Well… Kind of. Heat pumps are a more modern iteration, which can both heat or cool a room. And they’re not like a traditional central AC system, where you have a central compressor and ducts running to each vent. Instead, you run refrigerant lines to each room, then the individual room unit actually does the cooling locally. It’s the same basic principle (using refrigerant to move heat outside, thus cooling the air,) but heat pumps are a more modern take.
And as an added bonus, a heat pump can also be used as a heater (and be much more efficient than a traditional heating coil.) Because it’s just moving heat around from the interior and exterior, and that can include moving heat indoors to warm the interior. And since they’re just moving heat (instead of using a coil to generate it) they can be over 100% efficient when you’re measuring wattage consumed vs heat produced.
AC is a version of heatpump that cools your house. Refridgerator is a heatpump that keeps your food cool. Freezer is a heatpump wäthat freezes things.
AC is not the same thing as heatpump. AC is just one application of an heatpump.
It is the exact same hardware running in different configurations, all that changes is refrigerant flow direction.
That is exactly what I said. I was just trying to say that heatpump is not the same thing as AC just as car is not the same thing as an engine.