Ultimate Green

Dave Yates (GrandPAH)_11

Inverter heat pumps are about to be available - from just about all of the central-system mfgrs. Variable-speed, just like a mod-con & do very well in cold weather (up to 80% of rated capacity to as low as 5F). Quiet & much more efficient than any of the single-speed models currently available.

There's GSHP too. I can't wait till that side of the industry moves to Inverter technology.

Dan Anderson

Ultimate Green (or brown)

Hey Guys,

I've been a long time "voyeur" on the site, but I have so much to learn that I try to keep my mouth (figuratively) shut, but lately I've decided that I have some ideas that will never go any further without some input (encouragement) from people I respect.

OK Enough BS (pun intended as you will see) here goes.

I'm sure you all know how an air-to-air heat pump works,so keep that in mind while I try to keep this short. I'm a wholesaler up here in Northern Minnesota and although we're selling more Heat Pumps these days, we don't sell a lot of them beacause it's just too darn cold most of the winter.

When I moved back to Minnesota a few years ago, I bought a former dairy farm and the well tank is in the barn!! I asked around and found out that this was standard practice because the farmers leave the heard inside at night and the body heat from the cows keeps the barn above freezing. You see where I'm going with this, right? Why not put the outdoor unit for the HP in the barn? I realize we've been doing this commercially for a while now, but farmers tend to fall through the crack between commercial and residential.

Anyway, I see some pitfalls ie: line set length, keeping the unit clean, condensation, etc. But I was hoping I could get one of you guys to go out and get a heard of cattle so we could try this.

Comments?

Dan

Steve Ebels_3

I like the way you think

Outside the box that is. Other than the pitfalls you mentioned, the most challenging being keeping the fins clean, the only thing I can see is this. When the unit is in reverse cycle or heating mode it's extracting heat from the ambient air. You may run into situations where the unit is actually cooling the barn down to much. This would of course depend on the cubic volume of the barn and the number of heat sources (cows) that are housed in it. The other thing would be overheating in the summer months when the HP is dumping heat into the barn instead of extracting it. That being said, it's a very interesting idea that you need to run some numbers on for each individual application to make sure you don't freeze the place up during a 0* night.