The air source heat pump is a fantastic investment for the house to reduce heating costs or cool down the house in the summer, but it is also important to take care of it. In this article I talk specifically about the air/air heat pump / split heat pump. Here are five tips to increase the life of your heat pump and avoid more expensive operation.
- Clean filters regularly
Maybe sounds obvious but can’t point this out enough. You can almost say that the air heat pump lives on air, so if you have a dirty filter, the heat pump must work harder and you will have poorer heat dissipation. This means that the heat pump will draw more power and the service life will be reduced.
- Clean the inside of the condenser
The condenser is located behind the filters on the inner part. Because the filters on the the heat pump are coarse filters, they do not catch all the dirt and some get stuck on the condenser, which has the same consequence as not cleaning the filters. Poor air flow, poor heat dissipation.
The easiest way to clean the condenser is to use either condenser cleaners or ordinary dish soap. Fill a spray bottle with the liquid; shower the condenser with it and then rinse with water. (Tip test with a little water first so you know that the drainage from the inner part is not clogged or incorrectly installed)
NOTE: Be sure to turn off the heat pump and turn off the power completely.
If you feel unsure in this part, you can hire a professional for this.
- Make sure that the outdoor unit receives air flow
Depending on where you live, the outdoor unit usually does not get as dirty. So here it is really just a matter of making sure that there are not a lot of leaves and other debris that can block the air flow. If you have built a box over the outdoor unit, there is a risk that it will freeze and in the worst case, the ice will break the outdoor unit.
- Set high air speed
No matter how silly it sounds, it is actually best to set the actual fan on the heat pump at as high a speed as possible. The fan motor itself does not draw much and you get a better distribution of the hot air.
- If there is a fireplace function, use it
If you have a fireplace, you should consider yourself lucky, because some heat pumps have a so-called fireplace function (not all). If yours has this, I recommend that you activate this. What happens is that if you, for example, set the heat pump to 22 degrees Celsius and you use the fireplace and it may be 24 degrees at the heat pump, the heat pump increases the fan speed automatically and therefore spreads the heat better in the house.
The Talking Lynx 