If you thought air conditioning was just for cooling you should think again, because modern inverter systems use heat pump technology to deliver both cooling and heating.

Compared to conventional heating systems, air conditioning heat pumps are cheap to run. producing up to 5 times the amount of heat energy for every kilowatt of electricity they use.

At best, the maxium efficiency of a conventional heating system is 100%, where an electric heater can produce 1kw of heat energy for every 1kw/h of electricity it uses.

Other heating systems are less efficient, where even a brand new central heating boiler may have a 90% efficiency rating.

The efficiency of an air conditioning heat pump is determined by its SCOP value, where a system with a SCOP value of 4.6 will produce 4.6kw of heat energy for every killowatt of electricity.

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If you have a room that requires 2kw of heat energy per hour and your unit cost for electricity is 34p, it will cost 68p per hour to heat that room with an electric heater.

Alternatively, you could heat that same room for just 14p per hour using your air conditioning system, with a SCOP value of 4.6, saving you 54p per hour. That's a massive saving of 78.26% on your heating bill.

Use our free calculation tools below to see how much you could save using aircon instead of your current heating system. Select the comparison you want to make and enter your own costs for Gas, Oil, Lpg and Electric. For more accurate results, enter your estimated heating demand and the number of hours you have your heating on per day to see your current running costs and the amount you could be saving with aircon.

Select your heating system from the options below