Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Air Source Heat Pumps

By Paul Myers


Commercial air conditioning comes in both centrally driven systems and local systems. Traditionally offices tended to have a central cooling and heating fan unit whereby the temperature controlled air is distributed throughout the building by a system of ceiling or floor ducts. A series of ventilation grills and baffles are balanced to ensue an even air distribution throughout the building.

This is possible because a heat pump simply moves heat from one place to another rather than converting it from a fuel, like in combustion heating systems such as a gas boiler. Although air-source heat pumps are an energy efficient option, they do not generally perform well over extended periods of sub-freezing temperatures or in colder climates. In regions with sub-freezing winter temperatures, it may not be cost effective to meet all your heating needs with a standard air-source heat pump, in this case a more complex or traditional method should be employed.

A slightly more complex solution would be to adopt a system with standard gas boiler heating as a backup. This method will help you to overcome are the issue if you are in a low temperature climate.

If inverter units are used in commercial buildings, these are often ceiling cassettes which come in a variety of specifications (1, 2 and 4 way cassettes). Perimeter areas and corridor areas often use air conditioning console units. Wall mounted inverter units are common throughout commercial buildings and are now becoming increasingly used in hotels. The attraction of these units is the opportunity for residents to control inverter output temperatures locally and very accurately. Most commercial air conditioning installations have state-of-the-art control equipment often centrally based but with local sensing. Computer based control units are now available that integrate functions such as temperature control, lighting, alarms and fire protection functions.

Ideally businesses should consider their cooling requirements during the colder months in order to avoid disappointment and uncomfortable working conditions, due to the volume of demand for air conditioning over the summer. Typically installation firms are quieter during the winter months and can complete projects in plenty of time before the hot weather begins.




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