Heat pump compared to infrared heating

The heat pump is a sophisticated technology for heat "recovery" from the environment. Similar to a refrigerator or air conditioning system, heat is transported from the outside to the inside through the compression and expansion of a coolant. You can already see the disadvantages compared to the easyTherm solution here: A heat pump is an electro-mechanical device with lots of moving parts. Like in a car engine, a piston runs in a cylinder that is subject to wear and tear (again, just like in a car engine). This results in a reduced service life, and maintenance is required. The device can also leak, and the coolant must be regularly checked. The different technologies of a heat pump (water-to-water, air-to-water, air-to-air) already show that additional moving parts (pumps, fans) are used that are also subject to wear and, especially in the case of external heat exchangers, to soiling.

The promised efficiency of a heat pump will be safely met under the specified test conditions but, used under real conditions, some of the losses will occur that are inherent to water-bearing central heating systems. This means that the electricity consumption in reality is not much below that of an easyTherm high-tech infrared heater.

The acquisition costs of a complete heat pump system are relatively high, and operating costs for service and maintenance as well as consumption-related costs must be taken into account.

To achieve high efficiency, heat pump systems require low-temperature surface heating (floor, walls, etc.). In a single-family house with 150 m² of living space and 8 cm screed thickness, 12 m³ of screed with a mass of nearly 35 tons are needed for this. This mass must be heated up first before any effect is noticeable in the room; due to their inertia, such systems can be hardly controlled at all, so they cannot respond to sudden heating up by the sun. When the sun heats the room, the heat must be vented from the ground – too bad about the energy!