this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2023
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No, Americans call those heat pumps, never heard the term reverse cycle air conditioners.
Re-read my comment :) I'm saying that Americans call them heat pumps while other countries call them reverse cycle air conditioners.
Edit: I reworded it, hopefully it's clearer now!
It's weird in the USA because everything is so expensive, and you can still get air conditioners that can't also heat the house. Heat pumps are standard in many other countries. In Australia, pretty much all of our ACs are reverse cycle, and you can get a mini split for less than $1000 fully installed.
Kiwi here, we call them heat pumps over here. In fact it's the first time I'm even hearing the term "reverse cycle air conditioner" lol.
Oh OK! They're called reverse cycle air conditioners in Australia. I like that name because it better reflects what the system actually is.
A heat pump is just a device that moves heat from one place to another, using refrigerant. A bunch of things have heat pumps in them. Your fridge uses a heat pump (a fridge is really the same concept as an air conditioner - move the heat from inside the fridge to outside the fridge). You can get clothes dryers and water heaters that use heat pumps too.
In US. I can go to the store and grab a mini split for under $750 and install it my self. People get AC without heat because you have to get an emergency heater with it in most parts of the country anyways. Gas is cheaper as a general rule so it's far more cost effective to get AC with a gas furnace. Places in Cali and Texas we just put in cooling only because they don't ever use heat. Heat pumps are more the norm nowadays here with hybrid heat so your emergency heat can still be gas. In those below freezing times
I'm having a cheap Gree Flexx installed at the moment, and even it can heat down to -22F (-30C). People use them in Canada without heat strips.
I'm in the San Francisco Bay Area so it doesn't get too hot nor too cold here. Very rarely goes above 86F (30C) or below 41F (5C). Good weather for a heat pump. We did actually use the old furnace last winter - it got colder than usual.
I've got 11.2kW of solar panels too, so electricity is much cheaper than gas for me :)
Sure lots of heat pumps can "heat" that low, you're not getting very much heat though. I'd be surprised if they don't have some kind of supplemental heat source. I didn't see any actual engineering documents to see what the outputs are at those ranges. To heat a space you should have output temps minimally in the low 90F range. Some of the heat pumps now are heating the refrigerant seperately in those low temp conditions. So kind of cheating.