Man this was a wild ride on this comment chain. At first I was sad, because I don’t have ductwork, now I am excited because I was eyeing a mini-split for our AC anyway. Yay!
Yeah, just get one with reversing valve so you can switch between heating and cooling cycle. Well more like switch around where the heating an cooling cycles happen.
Minisplit doesn’t matter since actually almost all of the process happens on the outside unit. What goes inside is the fluid lines(refrigerant feed and return), condensation water line out from the inside and a control data cable from the inside blower unit to the outside operative unit. Outside unit switching around what stage of the fluid cycle gets fed to the inside going line, changes purpose between cooling and heating. Oh yeah and the inside unit also has an electric fan and nozzles to make the airflow happen.
edit: What often mislead is people designating one and other of the coils as evaporator and condenser depending on choosing which mode is “default”. Even manufacturers materials. However with 4-way diverting valve unit there is no dedicated evaporator and condenser. There is just two heat exchanger coils. Inside located coil and outside located coil. It is completely upto the valve position and flow diversion, as which is which. Each is always one or the another, but which is which is depending on the valve position. The system is equally as happy air-conditioning the outside or the inside. Thus in match heating the inside or the outside.
Heat pump and AC are the same thing. AC is just specific name for use case of heatpump, where the cold coil (evaporator) is inside and the hot coil (condenser) is outside.
Wait a minute… so I can just turn my window unit 180 degrees in the winter? Joking… sort of. Would that work, at least for a while (in theory, I am not actually weird enough to try it)
Well it would probably “pee” on your floor. Since typically window unit air conditioners have condensation water tube going to outside edge and just letting it drip out. The condensation water after all has to go somewhere. Minisplits actually usually have a third line going out for that along with the refrigerant lines. Fluid in, fluid return and then condensate waterline for, when the inside is cooling and thus generating condensation.
Otherwise? It probably isn’t winterized, but theoretically… heat pumping is heat pumping. It would try to cool the outside air and thus heat inside. Though its thermostats probably would need tweaking. Don’t think those have setting for “please cool down to -15C”. Meaning in practice it would never run, since ambient already is constantly below its minimum temperature. Though as I remember most arcane old units didn’t have such fancy feature as thermostat. You just turned them on, they would pump at their full capacity constantly and you were yourself supposed to be the thermostat by turning the power switch off, when you didn’t want any more cooling.
Man this was a wild ride on this comment chain. At first I was sad, because I don’t have ductwork, now I am excited because I was eyeing a mini-split for our AC anyway. Yay!
Yeah, just get one with reversing valve so you can switch between heating and cooling cycle. Well more like switch around where the heating an cooling cycles happen.
Minisplit doesn’t matter since actually almost all of the process happens on the outside unit. What goes inside is the fluid lines(refrigerant feed and return), condensation water line out from the inside and a control data cable from the inside blower unit to the outside operative unit. Outside unit switching around what stage of the fluid cycle gets fed to the inside going line, changes purpose between cooling and heating. Oh yeah and the inside unit also has an electric fan and nozzles to make the airflow happen.
edit: What often mislead is people designating one and other of the coils as evaporator and condenser depending on choosing which mode is “default”. Even manufacturers materials. However with 4-way diverting valve unit there is no dedicated evaporator and condenser. There is just two heat exchanger coils. Inside located coil and outside located coil. It is completely upto the valve position and flow diversion, as which is which. Each is always one or the another, but which is which is depending on the valve position. The system is equally as happy air-conditioning the outside or the inside. Thus in match heating the inside or the outside.
Heat pump and AC are the same thing. AC is just specific name for use case of heatpump, where the cold coil (evaporator) is inside and the hot coil (condenser) is outside.
Wait a minute… so I can just turn my window unit 180 degrees in the winter? Joking… sort of. Would that work, at least for a while (in theory, I am not actually weird enough to try it)
Well it would probably “pee” on your floor. Since typically window unit air conditioners have condensation water tube going to outside edge and just letting it drip out. The condensation water after all has to go somewhere. Minisplits actually usually have a third line going out for that along with the refrigerant lines. Fluid in, fluid return and then condensate waterline for, when the inside is cooling and thus generating condensation.
Otherwise? It probably isn’t winterized, but theoretically… heat pumping is heat pumping. It would try to cool the outside air and thus heat inside. Though its thermostats probably would need tweaking. Don’t think those have setting for “please cool down to -15C”. Meaning in practice it would never run, since ambient already is constantly below its minimum temperature. Though as I remember most arcane old units didn’t have such fancy feature as thermostat. You just turned them on, they would pump at their full capacity constantly and you were yourself supposed to be the thermostat by turning the power switch off, when you didn’t want any more cooling.
It probably wouldn’t run because the air its ingesting to cool is already cold, but if you bypassed the thermostat, sure.
Because they’re not designed to work that way I’m sure their efficiency would be low/non existent in actually cold temps.
Early heat pumps could only work to like 30F or so. New ones are much, much better.