8 June

I’m sure Adam will nod! I did a comparison of the energy used by leaving a reverse cycle heat pump on all night, to heat the house (blue circle), and leaving it off at night and then turning it on in the morning to heat the house (yellow circle). Leaving it on all night used less than half the energy only turning it on in the morning used. Heat pumps run even more efficiently when they’re not constantly having to dramatically heat or cool the air. They ‘condition’ the air, which is why they’re called air conditioners, not ‘heaters and coolers’. Or as the great analogy Adam gave me says, you don’t just turn the fridge on when you want to cool your drink down. They have thermostats and inverters too, which means they regulate themselves - they automatically adjust how much energy is needed. Leaving the heat pumps on constantly also warms or cools the walls and other objects in your home, which further reduces the energy needed to heat or cool the home at hot or cold times. In winter the warm walls re-radiate the heat at night, or in summer the cooler conditioned air stops heat outside building up in the walls during the day. Heat pumps are a wonder of the world. They’re up to 600% or more efficient, compared to well below 100% for everything else. Nobody should really be using anything else for heating and cooling now, unless they’re living in a tent. Including burning wood, which is a disaster for air pollution and as configurable as a brick.