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Heating need not be 'all waste'. An air (or ground) source heat pump heats a room, counterintuitively, by pumping heat from the colder air outside. It uses less energy than the amount it releases into the room.


(also known as an ac in reverse)


I've heard this term twice in this thread. Do most people not just call them heat pumps? Certainly that's what they're known as here in the PNW.


I don't know that I've encountered a space heater based on a heat pump, but in my mind...

"air conditioner" - a machine which keeps one or more rooms in a house cool, powered by a heat pump.

"heater" - a machine which keeps one or more rooms in a house warm, usually not powered by a heat pump.

"refrigerator" - a machine which keeps its own interior cool, powered by a heat pump.

"freezer" - a machine which keeps its own interior below freezing, powered by a heat pump and usually attached to a refrigerator.

All of which is to say, a heat pump is a machine that moves heat. It's named after its effect. But "heaters", "refrigerators", and "air conditioners" are named after their purpose, not their mechanics, and include heat pumps--if they do--incidentally, as the mechanism by which they achieve their purpose. If somebody came up with a refrigerator that still kept your food cold but didn't use a heat pump, I wouldn't hesitate to call it a "refrigerator".




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