My neighbour who has heard one in use told me that particular model was similar to having a large electric air compressor constantly running.
Nice in the middle of the night when surrounded by them I surmise.
U.K. Heat and Buildings Strategy, £450m available to homeowners
- Thread starter MrCurry
- Start date
Nice in the middle of the night when surrounded by them I surmise.
StoneRoad
heckling from the back!
Yeah, I have heard heat pumps - they can be quite noisy, much louder than the refrigerator comparison usually touted, more like a low pressure / high volume compressor.
IF, it runs continuously, it would just add "white noise" to increase the background noise pollution. I would probably be able to tune that out --- but if it stops and starts, nope, that would be very intrusive. [I have a freezer in an outbuilding with a noisy compressor and I can hear that at night if it cuts in, if the door to the outbuilding is open for the visiting cat to explore]
I live in an area that is currently very quiet at night. If the wind is in the right direction I can just hear a railway and major road that are about two / three miles away ...
IF, it runs continuously, it would just add "white noise" to increase the background noise pollution. I would probably be able to tune that out --- but if it stops and starts, nope, that would be very intrusive. [I have a freezer in an outbuilding with a noisy compressor and I can hear that at night if it cuts in, if the door to the outbuilding is open for the visiting cat to explore]
I live in an area that is currently very quiet at night. If the wind is in the right direction I can just hear a railway and major road that are about two / three miles away ...
MickiQ
In My Defence I was left Unsupervised
The Hindenburg going boom is one of those things that has fixed itself firmly in the public pysche but hydrogen is actually less explosive than natural gas (mostly methane) it only has about a fifth the energy density which means more has to be burnt to get the same amount of heat but it's clean only producing water vapour rather than water vapour and carbon dioxide like methane. The big problems with hydrogen are that the molecule is tiny compared to methane making it much more work to seal pipes and the fact it doesn't exist freely in nature for long, it has to be cracked out of something first (ideally water) which requires energy.
Hydrogen would be the perfect fuel in a post-fusion industrial world, using cheap energy from the reactor it could be cracked out of seawater to burn in internal combustion engines, gas boilers and turbines, power fuel cells and of course fuel the fusion reactors themselves. The massive flaw in that plan is of course we are still some years from a practical working fusion reactor but it could be cracked with renewable energy in the meantime.
bluescreen
tofu eating wokerati
That sounds like where I live. But the care home over the road installed something a while back that has a noisy compressor running all the time, which is quite intrusive at night. Can't imagine what it would be like if all the neighbours were doing it. I'm quite keen to get one but the noise is a problem for me as I have mild misophonia anyway.
equationgirl
Respect my existence or expect my resistance
I don't know how these are going to work for properties that can't be easily insulated and/or blocks of flats.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Has anyone actually read the strategy document? It is here
It's not proposing heat pumps as a solution for everyone. It's proposing funding to encourage a relatively small number of early adopters to start using them and establish them as a more mainstream option.
The strategy also has stuff about hydrogen.
It's not proposing heat pumps as a solution for everyone. It's proposing funding to encourage a relatively small number of early adopters to start using them and establish them as a more mainstream option.
The strategy also has stuff about hydrogen.
This is the problem. Attack the problem from the bottom up.
WouldBe
Dislicksick
I'm still not convinced they actually work as they appear to be over unity devices. A heat exchanger can't amplify the temperature of something so the extra heat must come from the compressor but again it can't be over unity. The only way I can see it working without breaking the laws of physics is if the heat generated by compressing the gas is more efficient than using a heating element. 
StoneRoad
heckling from the back!
Updating the housing stock would be a massive undertaking - and there is quite a lot of potential for other problems.
I'm thinking specifically of the "embeded" carbon in the old building and ditto for the replacement.
I'm thinking specifically of the "embeded" carbon in the old building and ditto for the replacement.
Don't demolish old buildings, urge architects
Knocking down defunct structures sends a wrecking ball through carbon targets, architects say.
www.bbc.co.uk
teuchter
je suis teuchter
It just moves energy that's outside the house, into the house. The outside air gets slightly colder and the water circulating in the heating inside the house gets warmer.I'm still not convinced they actually work as they appear to be over unity devices. A heat exchanger can't amplify the temperature of something so the extra heat must come from the compressor but again it can't be over unity. The only way I can see it working without breaking the laws of physics is if the heat generated by compressing the gas is more efficient than using a heating element.
Although it's true they work by magic, they don't create any free energy.
WouldBe
Dislicksick
If you had a mug of water at 50C and another mug of water at 30C and mixed them together you get water at 40C not 80C.
E2a: even with a heat recovery ventilation system the air coming back in is slightly cooler than the air in the room, it doesn't come in warmer.
Saul Goodman
It's all good, man
Your neighbour is talking shite.
Saul Goodman
It's all good, man
No, they don't.
WouldBe
Dislicksick
Certainly not natural.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Through the magic of a heat pump you can make the mug of water at 30c go down to 20c and the mug of water at 50c go up to something higher than that.
Just like your fridge moves heat from the inside of it to the outside of it, using heat pump magic.
A heat recovery ventilation system doesn't use a heat pump, just a heat exchanger. And the air coming back in is slightly cooler because the heat exchanger isn't 100% effective. But it also doesn't require any energy to be put into the system other than that used by the fans to physically move the air.
A heat pump does need external energy to do the work of moving heat energy from one location to another. But if this allows it to move more energy than it needs to do the work of moving... Then you get more great energy out of the system than the electrical energy you use to run it. It's not free energy because it's not come from thin air - it's just energy that was previously in a different location.
Maybe, but the post below mine from StoneRoad appears to agree with my shite talking neighbour, who works in building control for North Lincolnshire Council.
MrCurry
right after this urgent rest
Although they may appear to be unproven new technology from the perspective of the U.K. market where they’ve been rare until now, in other places around the world heat pumps have been heating people’s homes for over 50 years. They’ve been common in Sweden since the 1970s and are now the most mainstream choice. If they didn’t “actually work”, I think people would have noticed by now.I'm still not convinced they actually work as they appear to be over unity devices. A heat exchanger can't amplify the temperature of something so the extra heat must come from the compressor but again it can't be over unity. The only way I can see it working without breaking the laws of physics is if the heat generated by compressing the gas is more efficient than using a heating element.
They do work, as the electrical energy it takes to move heat energy from one place (outside) to another (inside) and release it is much less than the energy which creating that amount of heat directly from electrical heating would consume.
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WouldBe
Dislicksick
I don't see how air in a fridge at 5C can make the "radiator" at the back of the fridge run at 50-60C. The maths doesn't add up.
WouldBe
Dislicksick
Sorry you've misunderstood. They do work but not how people think they work.
They can still produce the heat directly from electricity if the heat is produced more efficiently. Look at light bulbs, 60W for tungsten filament, 11W for compact fluorescent and 6-8W for LEDs for the same output.
And heat pumps may work well in Scandinavia as the houses have always been much better insulated than houses in the UK.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Show us the maths that doesn't add up.
WouldBe
Dislicksick
Really?
When you were a kid did you ever put your thumb over the end of a bike pump and pump operate it?
The end of the pump didn't get hot due to some mystical heat exchange, it got hot due to you compressing the gas in the pump.
MrCurry
right after this urgent rest
Righto - you’re clearly quite an expert. I’ll leave you to it and hope, in due course, the rest of the world catches up with your advanced understanding of the technology
Saul Goodman
It's all good, man
I've heard more compressors than I could possibly remember. I've also heard my mate's heat pump compressor. It's a scroll compressor and it's almost silent, and certainly quieter than any piston compressor I've ever heard, so regardless of where he works, your neighbour is wrong.
Are heat pumps noisy? - IMS Heat Pumps
How much noise do ground source and air source heat pumps make? This blog post explains the details of expected noise, and what this means.
www.imsheatpumps.co.uk
Most piston compressors operate above the noise level that would require ear protection (85dB>)
Example | Noise level (decibels) |
| Breathing | 10 |
| Whispering / rustling leaves | 20 |
| Quiet rural area | 30 |
| Library / bird calls | 40 |
| Heat pump noise limit (MCS) | 42 |
| Conversation at home | 50 |
| Conversation in an office or restaurant | 60 |
| Vacuum cleaner | 70 |
| Alarm clock / dishwasher | 80 |
Heat Pump Noise Levels: How Noisy Are They? - Evergreen Energy
There are different types of heat pumps and the volume of noise they make depends on each model. Find out how each heat pump sounds and more.
www.evergreenenergy.co.uk
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2hats
Dust.
I've just spent a couple of months living in a place heated only by an air source heat pump system. I didn't notice the unit was running unless I was standing outside within a couple of metres of it. No louder than the fridge; less intrusive than the dishwasher.
A heat pump does not create thermal energy. It just moves around thermal energy that already exists.
Before we leap into thermodynamics, try thinking in terms of 278K and 323K and thus using a unit of (electrical) energy to move a very small amount of (several units of thermal) energy from a vast warm object/volume to ever-so-slightly warm up a (relatively) minuscule object/volume.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
If you want to understand how a heat pump works, you can look it up on the internet. The heat is moved from one location to another, not generated by the compressor, as several people people have now pointed out.
Saul Goodman
It's all good, man
All resistive element heating systems are by definition 100% efficient at converting electricity into heat. They all have a COP of 1.0. So for every watt of electricity you put into the system, you get 1 watt or 3.41 BTU of heat out. The only thing you can effect is how you distribute that heat.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Not correct
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