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Re:US companies are producing heat pumps that work below -20... by mindslight on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @10:32AM (#34161965)
AFAICT one of the main difficulties with heat pumps is that they want to use low temperature emitters, similar to condensing boilers. This is a general thermodynamic rule, but hits sources aiming for high efficiency extra hard, since they've been designed around exploiting it.

So you can't just take a decades old system with oil/gas using finned radiators, just replace the boiler, and have it supply enough heat on the coldest day ("design day"). Rather you'd at least need to add some emitters, greatly increasing the scope of the project for a professional installer.

What I haven't been able to find an answer to is that everybody says hydronic heat pumps need low delta T of 5-10 degree F (implying high flow rate for given heat transfer). But I would think the real constraint would be just on their leaving water temperature, and a heat pump (load side) that took in 100F and put out 120F (at say 5GPM) would be happier and more efficient than one that took in 110F and put out 120F (at 10GPM). But I've yet to find anything that confirms this.

Re:US companies are producing heat pumps that work below -20... by amluto on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @10:47AM (#34162132)
> What I haven't been able to find an answer to is that everybody says heat pumps need low delta T of 5-10 degree F (implying high flow rate for given heat transfer)

I don’t see why this would matter at all. Maybe the heat exchanger would need to be sized differently for a different flow rate, but in general a lower entering water temperature on the hot side seems preferable.

Re:US companies are producing heat pumps that work below -20... by sokoloff on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @10:52AM (#34162190)
Your intuition is correct on the last point. Where the "everybody says" side is coming from is the average water temperature in the emitters (and therefore heat flux from emitters to the building) will be higher if the flow (supply) is 120°F and return is 110°F than if the flow is 120°F and return is 100°F.

That's why designers are often specifying lower delta-Ts for low-temperature emitters: to allow the flow temperatures to remain as low as possible [for efficiency] at a given average water temperature [for effective heating].

Re:US companies are producing heat pumps that work below -20... by mindslight on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @12:02PM (#34163034)
It's definitely in line with general thermodynamics. One would expect lower entering water temperature to be more efficient (especially with the condenser being counterflow). I'm just not sure if there's something specific about the design of real world heat pumps that makes it so that higher delta T across the pump is problematic. I thought I would have come across some hydronic professional explaining this a bit more in depth while focusing on each variable, but so far I have not.

Maybe it never comes up in practice because heat pump systems inevitably need some kind of buffer tank. If you're designing a system from scratch then you design for lower delta-T in the emitters to keep the max water temperature down. And if you're using existing emitters then you just live with the inefficiency due to higher max water temp, but still keep the flow from the heat pump to buffer tank high regardless (to keep the max water temp from being even higher).

Re:US companies are producing heat pumps that work below -20... by a9h74j on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @12:33PM (#34163428)
There is a YT video with Matt Risinger discussing/promoting "Thermafloor"(IIRC) which uses 25mil aluminum over the full surface of the flooring panels. They discuss some of the benefits of lower water temperature, but not all of the variables.