Save up to 60% on Your Space Heating versus Oil or Gas – Solar Bhride Centre
The Ice Stick is an air to water heat pump that can easily be installed in a new build or retro fit and connected to an underfloor water heating system or your existing radiators. The Ice-Stick Heat Pump saves energy in an environmentally friendly way and is ideally suited to Ireland’s naturally windy climate. It only takes heat from the air which the building actually requires. Once the Ice-Stick Heat Pump is installed, all you have to do is set the temperature you require in the house and the rest is done by the Ice-Stick year after year. The Ice-Stick Heat Pump uses only nature’s forces when defrosting itself.The Ice-Stick only has one moving part – the compressor so little or no maintenance is actually required. It is a exceptionally environmentally friendly Heat Pump solution which will greatly reduce your space energy heating cost by up to 60% for both residential and commercial applications.
2010 WWF Climate Solver Product of Year
Swedish inventor Kurt Karlsson created the Ice-Stick Heat Pump, a novel implementation of the classic heat pump consisting of a statue-like set of outdoor aluminium pipes that look a lot an icicle. These outdoor aluminium pipes condense water vapour from the air, causing the refrigerant inside them to warm and evaporate.
When the evaporated gas moves to Ice-Stick’s compressor, pressurisation raises the temperature of the refrigerant further. The system’s pump sends this heat through the water system of a home or building. With the heat dispersed via a radiator (for example) and pressure lowered, the refrigerant is ready to travel back up to the evaporator to repeat the cycle.
Hotfoot/Calorique also offer a hybrid Ice-Stick which uses both air and geothermal sources for heat to help keep the system working efficiently in extremely cold climates.The Ice Stick Air to Water Heat Pump has proven to be ideally suited to our Irish climate as the majority of the time, the weather is mainly cold, wet and windy which ensures regular cold airflow and moisture over the actual aluminium tubes which in turn heats up the propane gas within the cylinders. With average winter air temperatures often higher than can be extracted from the ground, and an average air temperature of 9 º C over the last 30 years, Air to Water Heat pumps can be up to 25% more efficient than ground source heat pump options. Unlike all other Air Source Heat Pumps, the Ice Stick is unique in that it does not require a fan to draw the air into it, and more importantly, it does not have to use energy to defrost itself –defrosting is done by nature which is absolutely free.With 40% of the global CO2 emissions originating from buildings, solutions to radically reduce this impact are of great importance. The Ice-Stick can save 60-75% of the energy needed for heating buildings. It’s an inspiring application of a mature technology with a global potential yet to be realized. If one in five buildings in the targeted market installs a heat pump similar to the Ice-Stick the emissions of CO2 can be reduced by 29 million tonnes annually in 2020.