Tag Archives: heat-pumps

Andreas Bangheri knows how to read the wind. He’s been hang gliding and piloting small aircraft around the mountains of his native Austria for years. And he can tell that things are changing. “The wind is getting stronger and stronger. It’s becoming more of an issue,” says Bangheri, CEO of …

The Chinese bus company couldn’t work it out. Some days when its buses merely crawled along Shanghai’s streets, their power consumption would go through the roof. The reason why was a mystery. So, a team from the US firm Montana Technologies flew out to investigate. They started clamping electricity meters …

Outside a 100-year-old house on the edge of the Peak District in northern England, a heat pump’s fan blades are swiftly spinning. They’re drawing outdoor air over coils of refrigerant, harvesting warmth from that air. All air-source heat pumps do this—and they can glean heat even on cold days. But …

If you’re one of the 100 percent of humans who lives somewhere warmer than –460 Fahrenheit, we’ve got good news: You probably qualify for a heat pump. Instead of generating heat, this emissions-slashing superhero transfers warmth from even freezing outdoor air into your home. If the air is warmer than …

People everywhere are hot for heat pumps. These electric appliances—which perform the same heating and cooling tasks as traditional HVAC systems, just much more efficiently—have been outselling gas furnaces for the past couple of years. Their proliferation seems to be pointing toward a more energy-conscious electric future in people’s homes. …

If billionaires actually cared about saving the planet, they’d pool their vast wealth and buy everyone a heat pump. Instead of burning planet-warming fossil fuels, these appliances extract warmth from even freezing outdoor air and transfer it into a building, thanks to neat tricks of physics. In the summer, they …

This story originally appeared on Grist. It was produced by Grist and originally copublished with the Guardian. It's republished here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. My wife and I live in a green, two-story colonial at the end of a cul-de-sac in Burlington, Vermont. Each spring, the front …

Future generations will marvel at the ridiculous ways we’ve been keeping warm. With a furnace, you’re inefficiently burning toxic, planet-warming gas. In a big city like New York, your building might have a boiler that burns oil or gas to heat water or produce steam, which feeds wheezing radiators in …

Everyone's talking about heat pumps these days as a better way to warm your home. They even pull double duty, replacing your air conditioner in summer. The great thing is that they're generally more energy-efficient than old-school heaters, and they don't burn any fuel, so replacing that old gas furnace …

One of the most powerful weapons you can wield to fight climate change is … an appliance. A heat pump is a fully electric device that transfers warmth from outdoor air into a building, then reverses in the summer to act like an air conditioning unit. It’s much more efficient …