How Heat Pumps Work: A Beginner’s Guide to Efficient Heating and Cooling. If you’ve heard talk about heat pumps and energy efficiency lately, you’re not alone if you don’t know what any of it means. Most St. Louis homeowners just want to be comfortable without sky-high energy bills.
Heat pumps are one of the most efficient ways to heat and cool your home. And once you understand how they work, you’ll see why so many St. Louis homeowners are switching to them.
At its core, a heat pump is a system that moves heat from one place to another using electricity and refrigerant. It doesn’t burn fuel or generate heat — it relocates it.
Air conditioners cool by moving heat from indoors to outdoors. Heat pumps work the same way in summer — but in winter, they reverse direction and pull heat from the outside air to keep your home comfortable year-round.
Let’s break this down into two simple modes:
Even in freezing temperatures, the outside air still contains heat, and modern heat pumps are great at pulling it in.
This is the same basic process as an air conditioner, but the heat pump can reverse the flow, thanks to a clever little piece called a reversing valve.
Heat pumps run on the laws of thermodynamics — especially the second law, which says that heat naturally moves from warmer areas to cooler ones.
A heat pump takes advantage of this by using refrigerant to absorb heat in one place and release it in another. When refrigerant is compressed, its pressure and temperature rise, allowing it to release heat. When it’s allowed to expand, it cools down and absorbs heat.
This cycle — where the refrigerant changes pressure and phase (from liquid to gas and back again) — is what lets the system move heat efficiently. No burning, no creating heat from scratch. Just smart physics, doing the heavy lifting.
Here’s what makes it all go:
Think of it like a two-way superhighway for heat, with lots of helpful traffic signals along the way.
Traditional furnaces create heat by burning fuel or using electric resistance. That means they consume a lot of energy to do the job.
It takes much less energy to move heat instead of generating it.
Some models can deliver three times more heating or cooling energy than they consume. That’s over 300% efficiency compared to 80%–95% for even high-efficiency furnaces.
Bonus: modern heat pumps often use variable capacity technology, which lets them run continuously at lower speeds. This avoids energy-wasting on/off cycling and gives you more stable indoor temps.
There’s more than one kind of heat pump. Here are the main types:
SmartHouse offers multiple system types and will help you choose the one that fits your home and budget.
Short answer: Yes, probably.
Heat pumps used to be a “southern states only” solution, but today’s models are built to handle cold winters like ours. With the right setup, they’re a great choice for year-round comfort in St. Louis.
You may be a great candidate if:
Not sure? We’ll help you assess everything — from the perfect size heat pump for your home to incentives available to help you make your upgrade affordable.
You don’t have to figure this all out alone. At SmartHouse Heating & Cooling, we specialize in installing heat pump systems that are built for your home and lifestyle.
When you work with us, you get:
Now that you know how heat pumps work (and how cool they are — literally and figuratively), you might be thinking about taking the next step.
SmartHouse is here to make the process easy, affordable, and stress-free.
Call 314-370-1816, text 314-310-2242, or schedule an appointment online to get started. We’ll walk you through your options, show you how much you can save, and make your home more comfortable than ever.
