How a Heat Pump Works

  Video Transcript Basically how the heat pump works, we've got a fantastic damn over here, the actual internal gubbings, Keith Kemsley is going to show us how it works. We've actually had it recently on the One Show being documented. You might see it in the future. Just a basic concept of how a heat pump works, most of you probably know how that works already so if you don't you can see the internal gubbings of the heat pump, and this area here, the condenser and the evaporator, and this box in here is inside in the heat pump, inside where out plant room is. And all it is, is two heat exchangers and, here and here is the evaporator and condenser, and inside of that we have a refrigerant, an R407, an R410 ace, depending on which heat pump. They do change from heat pump to heat pump. The ground collector here is filled with a Glycol mix, a 30% mix to a sort of 70% water mix, and once we are bringing that on off the ground, hopefully above 0 degrees if the designs right consistently. We're coming into the evaporator where we are evaporating that refrigerant into gas form for which we are then taking it into the compressor. The compressor is the main act, the main motor that you are paying for, the main part of the bill that you actually get when it comes to paying for your overall heating. And once we have that compressor we literally start squeezing the gas, just like a car tyre, so it's increasing the friction of the molecules and increasing that temperature and we can get up to 120 degrees out of that hot gas. When we then bring it into our condenser which is our second heat exchanger, we are then transferring that heat onto our wet system, whether it be for heating or hot water. From then on we are then, it's then brought through the process as long as the heat has been taken away, and we are then bringing it through an expansion valve. The expansion valve is actually a very important part of the heat pump. It determines our flow of the refrigerant through and helps to make the system as efficiently as it can be. And once our expansion valve has basically has taken the air back to our liquid form, the process just continuously flows. Obviously these two, it is very straight forward, it was actually devised by a Glaswegion, Doctor Kelvin a long time ago. It has just evolved from that the Swedes and the Skandanavians have really grabbed it and have taken it forward to some of the products you see today.