Late last year, our forum member Xringer decided to purchase a Sanyo 24KHS72 mini-split air source heat pump. The heat pump is replacing/supplementing heat from an oil powered boiler that was the primary heat source for the house. We’ll be going through his step by step install over a series of posts here over the next few weeks.
Before we dive into his project, we should probably get some background information. First, what is a heat pump?
According to Wikipedia, “A heat pump is a machine or device that moves heat from one location (the ‘source’) at a lower temperature to another location (the ‘sink’ or ‘heat sink’) at a higher temperature using mechanical work or a high-temperature heat source.”
So, what the heat pump allows us to do is not create heat, but simply move heat around. It is more efficient to move heat around than create it from scratch. For example, if we were to put 100Wh into an electric heating element, we would get 100Wh of heat out of it. However, if we put 100Wh into the heat pump we would likely get 300Wh of heat out of it. This gives a COP (coefficient of performance) of 3. You move three times the amount of heat energy as you put in.
Its also called an air source heat pump because the source of the heat is air vs a ground source heat pump that gets its heat from tubing that is buried the ground.
The unit that Xringer selected is the heat pump model (you can get one just for A/C). This allows you to use it as a heater or an air conditioner.
So, with the basics down lets take a look at some of the specifications for the unit that Xringer is using:
Cooling Capacity: 4,000 btu to 24,200 btu
Heating Capacity: 4,400 btu to 29,000 btu
COP: 3.41 (at full output, higher at lower outputs)
Operation Range Cooling:
67 F to 90 F Indoor, Cold Air Return Intake Temperature
0 F to 115 F Outdoor Temperature
Operation Range Heating:
40 F to 80 F Indoor, Cold Air Return Intake Temperatures
0 F to 75 F Outdoor Temperature
For more info, please see Xringer’s forum thread.
Photos by: us.sanyo.com, en.wikipedia.org
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