High Efficiency Air Conditioners - A Case For Heat Pumps And Mini Split Systems

In the recent years, with the advent of Mc Mansions in the USA, bigger homes for the most part came with central air conditioning units and furnaces built in. In the rush to get as many houses built as possible in the shortest amount of time, little thought was given to the alternative options, such as heat pumps or mini split systems. We will talk about both of these energy efficient air conditioners here. By reading this, you should be able to decide whether replacing or supplementing your current AC units with high efficiency air conditioners will make sense for your finances in the times of increasing energy costs.

Heat pumps

Heat pumps are basically reversible air conditioners. The air conditioner will cool your home in the summer, it will be turned off in the winter and you will need to use a furnace to heat your home. The heat pump, on the other hand, runs just like an air conditioner in the summer, and will reverse its action in the winter, heating the house instead of cooling it.

Because the heat pump works on the principle of using energy to transfer energy from the outside of home into the home, it is much more energy efficient than the regular furnace. Depending on the outside temperature, and the type of the heat pump (geothermal or air to air), you will save as much as 50%-70% of the energy costs for heating in the winter.

Another advantage of running a heat pump throughout the year is - consistency. By not allowing the heat pump to rest and gather dust throughout the winter, you will minimize any effects of external debris or dust - you will simply be ready to perform monthly maintenance on your heat pump, any time of the year. Any problems will therefore never go undetected for long.

Mini split systems

Mini split systems are made of two units, the outside unit which houses the compressor, and the inside unit, which houses the air exchanger and the evaporator. Mini split systems, as the name implies, are used to cool (or heat in the case of mini split heat pumps) individual rooms. A single external compressor can typically be connected to up to four internal air exchangers in four different places or rooms.

The advantage of mini split systems is their energy efficiency compared with the AC wall units or AC window units, as well as with central AC systems. Since the (cold) air handler, or evaporator and the (hot) compressor are physically separated and only connected with the refrigerant pipe, the energy losses due to heat transfer are smaller in mini split systems as compared with the wall, window, or central AC systems. This is the reason for mini split system providing such energy efficient air conditioning and earning the energy star air conditioners stickers. When split mini air conditioners are compared with ducted central air conditioning systems or even with portable room air conditioners there are also much duct less heat losses, as it is easy to minimize the heat losses in the thin refrigerant pipes of a mini split system.