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Comment by cornstalks | Hacker News Reader

Yes, but typically “heat pump” is used to mean it can provide heating too, whereas standard “A/C” is a “one-way” heat pump that only provides cooling.

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I always went with this description too, though oddly a "heat pump water heater" only works one direction, yet "heat pump" is still in its name.

all heat pumps work in one direction. You can't move cold around with any mechanism. Only heat can be moved. The difference is residential "heat pumps" just have a set of reversing valves so you can move heat from outdoors to indoors.

> The difference is residential "heat pumps" just have a set of reversing valves so you can move heat from outdoors to indoors.

So.. they work in two directions.

It depends on your frame of reference.

Have to imagine that the niche market for making 40F/4C "cold" water from luke-warm tap water (if you live in an area that is so hot the tap water is warm) is fairly small.

It's not a niche market. Every office in the world has a water cooler.

The market for evaporative water coolers is niche, or probably only big in the developing world. Other than that water coolers use refrigeration aka a heat pump.

Naw. Every office in the world has a water dispenser misnamed "cooler".

Ive only ever seen water coolers in the US, mainly in the South, and they're loud

Every fridge with a cold water tap is literally this (in addition of being a fridge and a freezer, obviously)

My Frigidaire fridge doesn't seem to have a water reservoir, so the water dispensed is room temperature. (And eventually tap-cold temperature.)

A "heat pump water cooler" also exists and is better known simply as a water cooler. You know, the one that people gossip around.

Perhaps think of "heat pump" as something that can (also) bring heat into a building, whereas A/C generally (only) removes heat from it.

An A/C is a heat pump. Stop trying to change existing terminology

I've only ever known the term "heat pump", in the context of HVAC, to mean "an air conditioner that can also be used to heat".

Everyone in this thread might benefit from a little research before posting...

https://www.iea.org/reports/the-future-of-heat-pumps/how-a-h...

or a simpler article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump

It is different from a radiator or a furnace.

In the trades in the US we would exclusively use the term heat pump to describe a system where the “indoor” or “outdoor” coil can change from condenser or evaporator depending setting. Us HVAC guys would generally call a conventional system a conventional DX system (for direct exchange rather than chiller) or a split system (like a mini-split, minus the mini).

I work in the HVAC industry and "heat pump" in the context of A/C units exclusively refers to models that cool and heat by reversing the refrigerant flow.

> An A/C is a heat pump. Stop trying to change existing terminology

I am not trying to change existing terminology, I am using existing terminology. Air conditioners (A/C) are devices sold to only cool a house:

* https://www.lennox.com/products/heating-cooling/air-conditio...

* https://www.carrier.com/residential/en/us/products/air-condi...

* https://www.trane.com/residential/en/products/air-conditione...

Heat pumps are devices sold to both cool and heat a house:

* https://www.lennox.com/products/heating-cooling/heat-pumps

* https://www.carrier.com/residential/en/us/products/heat-pump...

* https://www.trane.com/residential/en/products/heat-pumps/

* https://www.ehpa.org/about-heat-pumps/