The heat pump is a nifty invention based on a simple principle: What if you could cause an air conditioning system to run in reverse, so instead of removing heat from the indoor air and blowing it outside, it would remove heat from the outside air and blow it indoors. Presto! The air conditioner changes from cooling to heating.
Although it may be a simple concept, heat pumps need to have several special components built into them to allow them to shift from cooling a home to heating it. Below we’re going to look at the parts of a heat pump that make it different from an AC, the parts that let it work as both an air conditioner and a heater.