Heat pumps can efficiently provide homeowners in Gallatin, TN with comfortable indoor climates, no matter the time of year. To show how heat pumps can function as both heating and cooling systems, we’d like to tell you about three of their most important parts.
1. Reversing Valve
The reversing valve is the key component that gives heat pumps the power to perform double duty as both heaters and air conditioners. To understand how this is so, remember that heat pumps use refrigerant to absorb heat from the air in one area and then deposit that heat into another area.
When your heat pump is in heating mode, warm air moves into your home. But in cooling mode, the opposite happens. The reversing valve controls the direction in which refrigerant moves through your heat pump and determines the mode that it’s in.
Sometimes, mechanical malfunctions or accumulated debris can stiffen the valve into one position, causing trouble. Luckily, HVAC technicians can perform maintenance services to fix that problem.
2. Evaporator and Condenser Coils
All heat pumps have two sets of coils: one set in the system’s indoor unit, and the other set is in the outdoor unit. Their job is to harbor refrigerant that will either evaporate or condense once some surrounding air floats by.
When the system is in heating mode, the outdoor coils function as evaporator coils. The indoor coils function as condenser coils, allowing heat to move into your home from the outside. When the system is in cooling mode, the opposite is the case.
3. Compressor
Before the refrigerant can move from the evaporator coils to the condenser coils, it must go to the compressor. The compressor’s purpose is to bring the refrigerant into an extremely high-pressure and high-temperature state. This will make it condensable.
These are only some of a heat pump’s components that must interact to keep your home in Gallatin, TN comfortable. Contact Derryberry’s Heat & Air to ask for heating services when your heat pump malfunctions.
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