Air source heat pumps (ASHP) and air conditioners (AC) are common choices for an HVAC system in many households.
According to the 2020 Residential Energy Consumption Survey, two-thirds of US homes use a central heat pump or an AC as the primary home air conditioning system.
So how do heat pumps and ACs compare when considering home comfort?
Air source heat pumps and air conditioning units can both provide cooling for a home, but with the right setup an air source heat pump can also provide heating as well as cooling. However, some heat pump systems may only be able to provide heating and not cooling.
We use our own air source heat pump for heating and domestic hot water only, and not for cooling.
However, as we live in a milder climate, we don’t need whole-house cooling and therefore have two air conditioning units that serve individual rooms.
We discuss in more detail below the main differences between air source heat pumps and air conditioning units, the types of heat pumps and in what scenarios you would choose one over the other, or both.
Air Source Heat Pumps vs. Air Conditioners
An air source heat pump is a cooling and heating system that transfers heat from one space to another; from the inside of a home or building to the outside, or vice versa, depending on the season.
This means that a heat pump can function as an air conditioner (for cooling purposes) during warmer months by removing heat from the air inside a home and expelling it outside, therefore effectively cooling a home by lowering the indoor air temperature.
In heating mode, an ASHP extracts heat energy from the outside air and delivers it indoors to help raise internal air temperatures.
On the other hand, an air conditioner acts only as a cooling system by moving heat and humidity from an enclosed space to the outside.
An air source heat pump can therefore be considered to be a reverse air conditioning unit that acts in the same way an air conditioner does but can also be used for heating purposes as well as cooling.
Both air source heat pumps and air conditioners have indoor and outdoor units that work together to cool your home, or heat in the case of a heat pump.
However, while outdoor units for both air conditioning and heat pump systems can look very similar, the indoor setup can vary between them depending on the type of air source heat pump system installed.
For example, our home is served by an air to water air source heat pump system.
It consists of an external heat pump unit that’s located outside our home and down the side of our house.
The internal apparatus consists of a hot water tank to provide domestic hot water, an