Heat pump
device that transfers thermal energy in the opposite direction of spontaneous heat transfer, typically using a vapor-compression cycle
A heat pump is a device that uses mechanical or thermal energy to transfer heat from one space to another. The mechanical heat pump uses electric power to transfer heat by compression. Specifically, it transfers thermal energy by means of a heat pump and refrigeration cycle, cooling one space and warming the other.
In winter, a heat pump can move heat from the cool outdoors to warm a house; in summer, it may also be designed to move heat from the house to the warmer outdoors, functioning in the same manner as an air conditioner. As it transfers rather than generates heat, it is more energy-efficient than heating by gas boiler.
In a typical vapor-compression heat pump, a gaseous refrigerant is compressed so its pressure and temperature rise. When the pump operates as a heater in cold weather, the warmed gas flows to a heat exchanger in the indoor space, where some of its thermal energy is transferred to that space, causing the gas to condense into a liquid. The liquified refrigerant flows to a heat exchanger in the outdoor space, where the pressure falls, the liquid evaporates, and the temperature of the gas falls. Now colder than the temperature of the outdoor space being used as a heat source, it can again take up energy from the heat source, be compressed, and repeat the cycle.
Air source heat pumps are the most common models, while other types include ground source heat pumps, water source heat pumps, and exhaust air heat pumps.
“Heat pump” enters the record as device that transfers thermal energy in the opposite direction of spontaneous heat transfer, typically using a vapor-compression cycle. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Heat, pump and device can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q131313. The Library of Congress control number is sh85059801. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Heat pump” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.