Air source heat pumps are a easy way of replacing a existing fossil
fuel heating system. Off the gas grid locations are particularly
expensive to run especially when oil is used and there is always a
issue of a big oil tank which needs to be sited on the property
which can be unsightly. Air source heat pumps have a outdoor
condensing unit (heat collector) which collects the heat from the
ambient air. These can be fixed on a wall or level and generally
look exactly the same as a air conditioning system outdoor
condensing unit.
The Basics :
The outdoor air source condensing unit comprises of a refrigeration
compressor, a condensing coil (Ambient air exchanger), fan and water
heat exchanger where collected heat from the ambient air is
transferred to the water. Most air source heat pumps run on R410a
refrigerant gas which has a maximum heat to water transfer
temperature of around 60 DegC. Other machines run on R417a which is
a replacement for R22 which is now not in use (as from 2010). R417a
machines maximum heat to water transfer temperature is 55 DegC, both
Gases require a booster electric heater to take the water
temperature above 65 DegC to surpass the legionnaires breeding
temperature. There is one machine which uses R410a and reaches 65
DegC, this is the
Daikin Altherma Heating Only Air Source Heat-Pump Boiler System high
temperature unit. This system can be very expensive. Other
options are the Sanyo CO2 system which reaches 80 DegC comes as a
complete system but uses the heat store principle where a water tank
which has multiple coils is used as a central store of heat.
Main
manufactures and machines:
Trianco Activair Air Source Heat-pump S500 (5 KW / 18000 Btu) for
DHW (basic non-inverter type which requires a heat store water
tank to transfer heat to) (No Longer Available, Trianco went bust
2010)
Hitachi AquaFree air source heat-pump boiler RWM 3.0FSN1E (10 kW /
33000 Btu) (mainly under-floor application)
Daikin Altherma Heating Only Air Source Heat-Pump Boiler (The
best money can buy, works down to -20 DegC)
Hitachi RHUE-3AVHN "all in one" air source heat-pump boiler (8.2 kW
/ 28000 Btu) DHW/heating ( all in one system with no need for
heat store)
Great selection of green products can be found at our website:
http://www.orionairsales.co.uk


