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Unicorn187 t1_j6dkq52 wrote

Baseboard: Electricheater with no fan located wher ethe wall meets the floor. Cold air is warmed and rises up the walls to the ceiling. Most houses with these will have ceiling fans to blow the warm air down in the center of the room where it cools and spreads back to the heaters. Not very efficient and you lose the ability to place a couch or bed next to that wall.

A furnace is like your oven. It burns a fuel, could be natural gas, propane, or fuel oil. A fan forces the warm air into the room, or into ducts that lead to vents in each room (this would also be central heating).

Central heatimg... the heater is in one location, normally the canter of the building with ducts leading to rooms and hallways. Cooling that works the same way is central cooling.

A window unit would be those AC units mounted in a wi down, and sometimes a hole in the wall, though there are dedicated wall units too, some of those also have a heater. Often used to just cool a room, or a small house at most.

Radiators are old school and suck. There is a large radiator, like what's in a car or AIO in a P , that has your hot pumped through it. The heat from the hot water going through those pipes warms the area. Larger buildings will have a boiler dedicated to heating water for this, and this is usually better. It can be heated to a higher temp si ce there's no danger of your turning on your hot water faucet and scalding yourself, and since it's in a sealed loop there won't be any loss of heat because you're taking a shower like Wil happen with one that uses shared hot water.... those really suck. Ok in summer or extremely mild winters, but are terrible when it's on the 30s or below. Bad in the 40s even.

A heat pump is based on a Peltier I believe. Or at least works in a similar way. It takes the heat from.k e location and sends it to another. This can be used to her or cool your home. Usually not used in extremely cold places and where it does get cold it wil.often have another heater as a back up if it can't maintain the temperature.

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AfraidBreadfruit4 t1_j6dx4t4 wrote

Heat pumps don't use peltier elements. They compress and expand a gas.

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Unicorn187 t1_j6dyvmo wrote

I had it backwards then. A peltier is a type of heat pump, not the other way around.

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Bay_Brah t1_j6dnb9o wrote

Wow thank you! Are furnaces & central heat different?

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Unicorn187 t1_j6dpmmz wrote

They are different things. A furnace is just the source of heat. It could je a single wall mounted unit or it could be the heat source for a central system. And could be a gas furnace or an electric furnace even. The furnace is the heat source used in multiple types of heating systems.

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