Refrigerants: The Key Player in the Operation of Heat Pumps in Vancouver

It's rather interesting to know that Vancouver heat pumps work like a prisoner exchange. Heat and cold keep exchanging places to regulate indoor temperature, just as two opposing sides swap POWs to regulate their troop count. This explains why a lot of heat pumps have external and internal units.



The heat pump is one of many examples of the refrigeration cycle at work. In the process, there is a constant exchange of heat and cold to direct warm and cool air where they're really needed. But the key player in any heat pump system is the refrigerant.



That's right; the refrigerant will help keep your home toasty throughout the Christmas winter. But don't refrigerants work the other way around?

Absorption of heat

As per the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the movement of heat is usually from a high to low temperature. To put it in a simpler context; when you put ice in a hot drink, heat quickly spreads through the ice, making the drink a bit cooler. Refrigerants work using this principle.



The transfer of heat happens in the outer unit of the heat pump system. Refrigerant is pumped into the coils facing the air intake vents. Any traces of heat get absorbed by the refrigerant. A compressor makes the heat even hotter before the transfer to the internal unit. The heat is the refrigerant in its gaseous form.

Heating the air

It's obvious that cool air is circulating if you feel cold in your home. Cool air inside the house will pass through a vent in the internal unit and eventually to an internal set of coils with heat running along them. At this point, the process is reversed. Now, it's the hot coils absorbing the cold from the air.



Just as water vapor condenses in the cold atmosphere, the refrigerant in its gaseous state reverts to liquid form and is pumped back to the external coils. A blower in the internal unit distributes the warm air via the ventilation system. Overall, it's one happy cycle.



The same principle can also be found in other products like a Vancouver tankless water heater and water-variant heat pumps. You can probably say the refrigerant is the star of this act. To know more about refrigerants, ask your friendly neighborhood plumber from Milani about them.