Air Conditioner, Warmth Pump, Furnace & Air Handler: What’s the Distinction?

For those who’re on the brink of exchange your HVAC tools, you’re in all probability researching your choices. Unbeknownst to many owners, there are a large variety of decisions obtainable for HVAC tools. This will understandably be complicated and overwhelming.

We’re right here to make issues simple.

You need environment friendly heating and cooling to your house, proper? Relying in your state of affairs, the most effective resolution for you could be very totally different from somebody in one other state, metropolis, and even the household subsequent door. Navigating your choices to decide on the most effective one is essential.

This text breaks tools down into 4 main classes: air conditioners, warmth pumps, furnaces, and air handlers. There are some sub-categories we’ll focus on, however each full HVAC system will embody some mixture of those items of apparatus.

We’re going to elucidate the variations between every, in addition to some professionals and cons to every. By the tip, you’ll know which is which, and in addition why these variations matter.

Why the Variations Matter

If it heats, it heats, and if it cools, it cools…proper?!

Effectively, form of. The totally different expertise underlying several types of tools could make a distinction for you. The potential benefits fall into two most important classes:

1. Effectivity – Some programs will function extra effectively than others, offering you higher consolation. Importantly, probably the most environment friendly system for one house won’t be the most effective for an additional. This may be attributable to the place you reside, but in addition what different HVAC tools you could have, since many A/C models, warmth pumps, furnaces, and air handlers are designed to work higher collectively.
2. Value – There are preliminary value variations to totally different tools sorts, and in addition variations in your vitality payments if the tools is correctly functioning in tandem. Value may improve in case you’re switching tools sorts (electrical to fuel furnace, for instance), since your own home might have new traces to correctly gas the system.

There are sometimes different concerns, however they’ll be explicit to a house’s wants. Subsequent, let’s have a look at some particular variations between tools sorts.

Distinction Between an Air Conditioner and a Warmth Pump

The quick reply is that air conditioners solely cool, however warmth pumps can each warmth and funky. Each take up and switch warmth. Warmth pumps merely have a reverse setting, the place they take up warmth from outdoors and switch it inside.

Including to some owners’ confusion is that an A/C unit and a warmth pump look an identical from the skin. With out figuring out the mannequin or seeing the internal workings, there’s usually no method to inform the distinction between the 2.

So if it each heats and cools, why wouldn’t you all the time need a warmth pump? Two most important causes:

1. The preliminary value of a warmth pump goes to be greater than a comparable air conditioner.
2. The effectivity of a warmth pump’s heating goes to undergo in colder climates. Right here in Columbus, OH, for instance, pairing it with an electrical furnace is mainly a necessity.

That’s to not say warmth pumps aren’t good options. When paired correctly, they will present extraordinarily environment friendly cooling and heating. However the context issues.

How Air Conditioners and Warmth Pumps Work

The expertise of air conditioners and warmth pumps works equally. To chill, warmth is absorbed by the indoor evaporator cool and transferred to the out of doors unit, the place it’s emitted. The stress of the refrigerant within the system, which varies relying on whether or not it’s inside or out, is what facilitates the absorption and emission.

Warmth pumps merely handle refrigerant stress in another way when heating a house, in order that warmth is absorbed outdoors, then transferred inside.

It’s a delusion that air conditioners and warmth pumps “cool the air.” That is what it seems like in case you put your hand over a vent when the air conditioner is working. However the technical course of is extra about warmth switch than it’s about cooling the air.

Forms of Warmth Pump

Now that we perceive how warmth pumps work, and what the variations are between them and air conditioners, let’s have a look at a few sorts of them.

Air-Supply Warmth Pumps

That is the kind that you just’ll be most acquainted with, and that you just’ll see within the overwhelming majority of warmth pump properties. It absorbs warmth from the encompassing air to pump into or out of the house.

Geothermal Warmth Pumps

The underlying expertise of a geothermal warmth pump is similar as an air-source warmth pump, however the supply of the warmth is totally different. These models typically sit in a basement and take up ambient warmth from the bottom itself. This may sound far-fetched, however using geothermal vitality for heating and cooling is an historical observe that predates trendy HVAC tools by hundreds of years. These programs, although, are extra not often seen in properties in comparison with air-source models and conventional air conditioners.

Distinction Between a Warmth Pump and a Furnace

Very similar to an air conditioner solely cools, a furnace solely heats, whereas a warmth pump can each warmth and funky. Moreover, warmth pumps work by absorbing warmth both from the house or from the skin and transferring it to the other location. Furnaces generate warmth in and of themselves, historically by fuel or electrical energy.

Warmth pumps are generally paired with electrical furnaces because of the overlap in expertise. A warmth pump will present some heating profit, which is supplemented by the furnace‘s warmth. By working in tandem at various ranges relying on the temperature setting, the 2 can present very environment friendly heating for a house.

As we focus on under, the several types of furnaces can change issues up. Relying on what sort you could have, the most effective mixture for you’ll be able to change.

Sort of Furnaces

The kind of furnace you could have issues, and might dictate whether or not try to be pairing it with an air conditioner or warmth pump.

Fuel Furnaces

In all probability the most typical and cost-efficient because of the low value of pure fuel, fuel furnaces nonetheless must have a fuel line run into the house to gas the system. In case your present or earlier system wasn’t gas-based, this could signify an extra components and labor value.

Fuel firms will typically solely run a fuel line to the meter outdoors your own home. An HVAC contractor then has to run the fuel line from the meter to your furnace. Relying on the gap between the 2, this could be a vital job by way of each money and time.

Electrical Furnaces

We’ll speak a little bit bit extra about these within the air handler comparability under, however electrical furnaces are the primary different to gas-based programs. They use electrical energy to generate warmth. In cases the place you’re pairing with a warmth pump, or the place lack of accessibility to a fuel line is a matter, they could be a viable possibility.

Oil Furnaces

These are nonetheless in lots of older properties, and signify another from a time when fuel furnaces have been rather more cost-prohibitive. Whereas they will nonetheless work in tandem with a contemporary cooling system, they are usually dirtier, worse for the setting, and fewer environment friendly than many trendy programs. That is compounded by the necessity for frequent upkeep visits because of the volatility of the oil, which may simply develop into contaminated and hurt the system.

Whereas any heating and cooling choice needs to be made by the home-owner, we regularly advocate choices for a substitute that may present myriad long-term advantages in comparison with oil furnaces.

RELATED: How A lot Does a Furnace Value? A Complete Breakdown

Distinction Between a Furnace and an Air Handler

So wait, if an air conditioner cools, and a furnace heats, you’re set, proper? Not fairly. An air handler is part of any ducted HVAC system. Merely put, it’s what strikes the air all through the system and your own home.

Generally what somebody will discuss with as your furnace is, in actual fact, an air handler with separate electrical furnace parts put in with it. Functionally talking, you don’t all the time must know the distinction, however a furnace or air conditioner with out an air handler won’t flow into air correctly to warmth or cool your own home.

It’s completely attainable, for instance, to have simply an air conditioner paired with an air handler. You may see this in very heat climates, or in, say, a completed attic or third story that stays heat sufficient within the winter however struggles to remain cool in the summertime with the present cooling system that’s working from the basement.

The one HVAC programs that lack an air handler are ductless mini-split programs. These ductless programs have gotten rather more widespread in conditions just like the attic instance above, the place you want a cooling and/or heating possibility for a small house.

RELATED: Ductless Mini-Splits vs. Central Air: Professionals and Cons

That mentioned, ductless HVAC programs are typically not as well-equipped for whole-home options, particularly when your own home already has ductwork for a central air system. In these cases, you’ll all the time have an air handler to maneuver the air all through that ductwork.

What’s the Finest HVAC System Mixture?

Hopefully, by now our reply gained’t shock you: it relies upon.

However somewhat than let that ambiguity be a frustration, we additionally hope that you just notice that there are “finest” choices for a lot of properties relying in your present setup, in addition to your long-term heating and cooling wants.

To state it bluntly, the low value of fuel makes an air conditioner + fuel furnace programs the only option for almost all of shoppers we work with right here in Columbus, Ohio. Nevertheless, we nonetheless see properties the place that resolution gained’t work, and it’s going to avoid wasting the home-owner cash each short-term and long-term to go together with an electrical system.

If the price of fuel modifications, because it has prior to now, that rule may change.

It will probably additionally change relying on the place you reside. Within the southern United States, for instance, electrical programs are rather more fashionable because of the decrease want for high-powered heating. You’ll discover many extra warmth pumps there.

Need to study extra in regards to the HVAC trade? Try our complete Studying Middle, the place we demystify any matter in your thoughts.

And in case you’re able to make the change to a brand new system sort, or just improve your present system, test our service space under to start out your journey!