Winter is near - sounds pretty chilly. And when winter is near and you have a neighbor who wants to destroy you, including by freezing the population, it sounds completely "unfrozen".

The issue of preserving the working potential and working space in the conditions of war is really mega-urgent - the economy is not easy, so business must work as efficiently as possible and support our guys on the front lines by intensifying economic activity. It so happened that in most cases the efficiency of the business depends on the comfortable conditions of the real estate in which the business is located. And here we come to the question: how to get pumped up before winter so that it is comfortable to go through it, regardless of frostbite through the "curb"?

The answer is to pump.

Let's start pumping with the principles: Heat pumps are an energy-efficient system that appeared on the market of Ukraine not so long ago, but has already gained widespread use and positive feedback from operating companies. A heat pump is a device that allows you to use the thermal energy of air and groundwater for heating or heating water.

Today, centralized heating has a high cost and low quality, so the heat pump has become a worthy replacement for conventional batteries. And the dynamics of sales of these systems in Europe confirms this.

This unit is characterized by versatility, as it serves to organize water heating and heating/cooling of premises.

There are several types:

1. Air "air-water" (used more often);
2. Aerial "air-to-air" is rarely used (in our practice, we implement such an object for the first time - the reconstruction of an old industrial building into a modern office space);
3. Geothermal water-to-water (less used) and soil-water (less used) require large initial drilling costs.

The principle of operation of the "air-water" heat pump is quite simple and consists of the following stages:

A powerful fan is located in the external module of the device, which takes air from the street.

• Then there is direct contact of outside air with the evaporator (heat exchanger).
• Refrigerant circulates in a closed circuit inside the evaporator, which heats up and evaporates (that is, turns into a gaseous state). A special property of the refrigerant is boiling at low temperatures. Gaseous refrigerant enters the compressor (which runs on electricity), where it is compressed. During compression, the pressure and temperature of the refrigerant increases.
• The heated substance under high pressure moves into the condenser, where it gives off heat to the carrier (in this case, water). After return, the refrigerant cools, condensation occurs and, as a result, the gaseous state changes to a liquid state.
• An expansion valve is installed in the circuit, the task of which is to reduce the pressure. After passing through it, the liquid refrigerant enters the evaporator (heat exchanger) again and turns into a gaseous state. This cycle is constantly repeated.

In Ukraine, the supply-exhaust system with recuperation is mainly installed - it includes air exchange, heating, and cooling. This solution is very expensive, but now it is the most optimal in terms of the universality of the solution, as it is suitable for almost all types of office premises.

Let's return to the military realities of Ukraine. If I were the owner of a commercial property that was about to be planned for commissioning or the question was of finding the most reliable solution for providing heating (especially for the 2022/2023 season, which promises to be not just difficult, but unpredictably difficult), then I would additionally install a solid fuel boiler, in case of lack of electricity or gas, and integrate it into the existing system. Let no one be confused by the need to have, say, a stoker who will load the necessary fuel from time to time, but this solution will ensure reliability and the absence of surprises at least in critical situations and will allow to wait out the process, for example, of repairing networks or some other force majeure without heat loss.

If the issue of economic expediency is at the fore, my choice is a heat pump. Its undeniable advantage is energy efficiency. Modern solutions can be applied to any commercial space.

In fact, there can be only one conclusion - no matter what system or principle of operation is envisaged at the facility, the greatest efficiency is ensured not only by the type of installation, but also by the connection between the architect (a lot depends on project decisions and construction materials) and the HVAC engineer (the expertise of the engineer not just critical, but CRITICAL to any system) is the installation contractor (his hands and experience can nullify all achievements of previous participants in the process). Their coherence of work and correctness of project documentation (including embedded technical solutions) in most cases are the source of suboptimal functioning of the entire system as a whole.