Quote:
Originally Posted by Zwerius
I was thinking about building a heatpump consisting of a number of old refrigerators. So actually a number of small heatpumps in parallel. By switching on a larger number by colder weather, you have a kind of modulating system.
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I think you idea is absolutely great!
The two-stage heat pumps are nothing more than that.
To keep inter-action to a minimum, build each small heat pump as a stand-alone unit: compressor, HXs, etc. Maybe call it a uHPU (micro Heat Pump Unit). You have choices in that you could combine them into a single house heating loop, or you could set up several independent units.
You could just switch in extra units as required, if they were combined into one loop.
My previous research indicated that maximum COP for mini-split units was obtained in the 9,000 to 12,000 BTU range. Bigger is not better.
It is easy to get cheap or free small units.
You could deploy these units separately throughout a house, which would give you de facto zoning.
A knock-on advantage is that should a unit fail, it would not take out a home's heating or cooling system... just a smaller % of it. But the real advantage to you is that you would create reliability by using cheap redundant parts (uHPU). This is the same concept that the Internet was based on!!
Zwerius, I think your idea is brilliant, and that you should absolutely do it.
My only advice would be to take loads of photos so we can see what you're doing.
Best of luck on your project, your idea really Rocks!!
-AC_Hacker