What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Heat Pumps?

Because water source heat pumps use newer technology, they are not as popular as other types of heating systems. So, in order to solve this problem and help others, we decided to discuss water source heat pumps in this article.

A water source pool heat pump, also known as a water source, transfers heat from the water source to your pool water. Source water enters the unit and passes through the evaporator coil, which contains a cold liquid refrigerant, commonly referred to as "Freon." As the source water passes through the coils, the refrigerant heats up into warm freon gas. The source water is cooled, leaves the evaporator, and returns to the water source. The warm freon gas is passed through a compressor, which compresses it into high temperature freon gas. This hot freon gas then passes through the condenser, which is where the pool water enters and exits the unit. The pool water flushes the coils, heats up, and keeps the unit warm. As heat is transferred from the coils to the pool water, the hot freon gas cools to become cold refrigerant again, and the process begins again.

Since there are many types of water bodies, there are many types of water source heat pumps.

1. Open loop: Also known as a deep well, an open loop consists of two deep wells: one to supply water to the heat pump and one to return water to the surface. How do you know if your well is deep enough? The bottom of a deep well should be in porous rock base soil. By contrast, the bottoms of shallow wells are usually in sandy soils. Shallow wells are prone to rapid pumping and clogging by loose soil.

2. Closed Loop: Also known as a ground loop, a closed loop system uses the ground as the heat source, not the water itself. In this system, plastic pipes are placed underground. A mixture of water and glycol (an antifreeze) circulates through the pipes and collects heat from the ground. The heated mixture is returned to the heat pump to heat the evaporator coil. A closed-loop system can be shallow and wide (called a horizontal closed group) or deep and narrow (called a vertical closed group).

3. Surface water: The surface water system is an open loop system. The system draws water from an open body of water. But keep in mind that higher maintenance is required to keep the water-refrigerant heat exchanger free from contamination by organic materials.

4. Water source heat pumps can also be used to transfer heat from an unheated swimming pool to a spa. Since the pool is large, you can transfer enough heat from the pool to heat the spa without significantly reducing the pool's temperature.

Advantages of Swimming pool heat pumps

Water source heat pumps only use electricity to transfer heat, not generate it. As a result, water source heat pumps are very energy efficient. The efficiency of a swimming pool heater is measured by its coefficient of performance (COP). The COP of a heat pump is usually between 5 and 6, which means an efficiency between 500% and 600%.

Disadvantages of Swimming pool heat pumps

Water source heat pumps have few disadvantages. Their significant disadvantages compared to gas heaters include high purchase cost and slow heating rates.

So now you know how a swimming pool heat pump works. Please contact us if you are interested in which type of heat pump is best for you.