Can using air conditioning to heat my home save money?

With the price of wholesale gas spiraling up by as much as 250% and UK gas suppliers going out of business, you might understandably feel more nervous than usual about turning on your central heating this autumn.

Well, the good news is that you can move away from a central heating system to air conditioning to keep you warm during those cold winter months, and better still, using a reverse cycle air conditioner to heat your home is one of the most energy efficient methods if done correctly, so you’ll be saving costs and helping save the planet too!

Surprisingly, we come across plenty of people who don’t realise that air conditioning heats as well as cools air. Yet, most modern air conditioning systems are heat pumps which means they are capable of heating and cooling.

Technically the air conditioning unit produces heat by reverse cycle. The condensing unit (outdoor coil) becomes the evaporator taking heat from the outside air and blowing cold air from the coil. The evaporator (inside coil) then takes cold out of the indoor air and blows heat in.

A split system reverse cycle air conditioning system is an ideal choice for controlling the temperatures in medium to large rooms or open plan living areas. Plus, if you’re short on space and need to warm several rooms, a multi-split system offers a multi-room heating method that covers more than one room with a single outdoor unit.

What’s more, with an air conditioning system, there are no unsightly radiators on the walls and the distribution of heat is kept even throughout.

Of course, there is the initial cost of installation, but in the longer term the energy efficiency of an air conditioning system will more than return your investment, and when summer comes you can also enjoy the additional – and more traditionally recognised – benefit of keeping cool as temperatures soar.