Roger Long wrote:
Larry,
snip RV heat pump advice for sailors
I put this post quite well up on my mental list of the ten best posts
ever to the forum.

I would also add KUDOS to common sense, a commodity often absent from
gold plated boaters with unqualified aspirations to snobbery. Hint:
real snobs don't need bling.

As an unconcerned snob, far too snobbish to usually involve one's self
with stupid people, I have however been unavoidably forced to
contemplate some issues of stupidity WRT heating and cooling and
energy.

The question in this vein begs expression: why do not all air
conditioners include the obviously useful option of being reversible?
Why do people not insist on this option?

To use an air conditioner as a heating appliance seems to me to be so
basic an idea thet there must be a conspiracy of stupid marketing
people to not advertise this as an option to save energy for heating,
and of course, money.

If every a/c could be switched to a heat pump function the energy saved
in winter, spring and fall heating applications would surely be
significant on a national scale, even if all we did was to reverse the
mounting in our window units and control the heating function by
unplugging it. Pumping heat is cheaper than creating it.

Why does not every a/c unit include provision to use it as a heater?

It's a national scandal of stupidity, especially given the efficiency
placards we see on refrigerators, stoves, etc. It's a scandal because
the efficiency would figure so obviously in an energy short world, or
just in dollars spent for heat.

Possibly a reversible control panel would be cheaper than reversible
valving solenoids or manual valves, even if, as some will say, it won't
work in a cold winter because of the freon, etc, etc, it would be worth
it if you do the math, even if the freon used were a little more
expensive.

Sometimes and once again, CHEAP is BETTER. It is only stupidity that we
do not, did not start on this 50 years ago.

Terry K