If you’re looking to keep your home cool and comfortable during the summer, you have two main options: a central air conditioner or a heat pump. But how are these two systems different? Which one is the right choice for your home? This guide will help you understand the advantages and disadvantages of both so you can make an informed choice about which home cooling system is most suitable for your needs.

What Is a Heat Pump and How Does It Work?
Heat pumps are an energy-efficient way to provide both heating in the winter and cooling in the summer. They work by exploiting the fact that heat naturally wants to go from locations of higher temperatures to locations of lower temperatures.

Specifically, the pump extracts heat from a source (the low-temperature location) and transfers it to a “sink” (the high-temperature location). In cooling mode, your home is the source: thermal energy is extracted from it and transferred to the outside, the sink. The reverse takes place during heating mode: thermal energy is extracted from the source, the outside air, and transferred to inside your home. This may sound surprising, but even at -18°C outside, the air contains enough thermal energy to generate 85% of the energy required to produce 21°C heat inside.

In Canada, the following two sources of thermal energy are most common:

Air source: The heat pump absorbs heat from the outside air in heating mode and removes heat and humidity in cooling mode.
Ground source: The earth or groundwater (or both) function as a source of heat in the winter and as a “sink” for heat in the summer. Ground source heat pumps have the advantage of not being subjected to high-temperature fluctuations in the air and are more energy-efficient than air source pumps.

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