Advocates want new building codes to include a heat-pump provision that could benefit consumers and the climate. But regulators have cooled on the proposal.
It’s weird that there are any AC that can’t function in heating mode at this point. In Australia at least, you’d be hard pressed to even find one that doesn’t support heating.
I, for one, would support a law that requires any new unit over a certain size must be reversible and maybe even a tier where they must have variable speed compressors. But I can already hear the Republicans lying that the feds are coming to steal your window units.
Air conditioners are already heat-pumps. This change would moreso replace furnaces.
They’re heat pumps in a technical sense, but coloquial terms, a “heat pump” is a heat pump which can actually heat a space.
The outside is a space too.
It’s weird that there are any AC that can’t function in heating mode at this point. In Australia at least, you’d be hard pressed to even find one that doesn’t support heating.
I, for one, would support a law that requires any new unit over a certain size must be reversible and maybe even a tier where they must have variable speed compressors. But I can already hear the Republicans lying that the feds are coming to steal your window units.
Of course, even modern window units (and portable AC) support reverse cycle. But conservatives will find a way to complain about it, agreed.
AFAIK most American AC units can be retrofitted to be heat pumps pretty easily. You’re just making it flow in reverse, after all.