As their name suggests, reversing valves reverse the refrigerant flow to send the hot, compressed vapor to the indoor coil instead of the outdoor coil. The system releases heat into your home, which keeps you comfortable in the winter.
Reversing valves for heat pumps. In this video we're going to be looking at the four port reversing valve, which is used in heat pumps. This is a critical component in the heat pump system, and this is what allows the refrigerant to reverse its flow to provide both heating and cooling modes.
What is a reversing valve?
Problems and troubleshoots and other kinds of informative things. What is Reversing Valve? As you understand from its name, reversing valve is a valve application that directs the coolant flow inside the heat pump applications in different or reverse ways.
A solenoid-operated reversing valve can be described as a four-way pilot valve and it is used in heat pumps. This type of reversing valves can be used for unitary, split systems, and window-type heat pump applications.
What happens if a reversing valve fails in a heat pump?
Reversing valves are built into the heat pump by the manufacturer, and must be replaced by an HVAC technician if they fail. Since the valve is an integral part of the sealed refrigerant circuit, proper procedures for recovering and then later refilling the refrigerant must be followed, to prevent its loss into the atmosphere.
As you can see in the image above, a check valve on each metering device determines which expansion device to use and which one to bypass. Then there's the obvious answer: air-source heat pumps have reversing valves while basic A/C units do not. The reversing valve does its job by diverting the refrigerant flow in the suction and discharge lines.
What happens when the revering valve operates in cooling mode?
When the revering valve operates in cooling mode. The refrigerant will leave the compressor and head to the revering valve. It will be diverted out the lower left pipe and flow into the outdoor unit where it will give up some of it's thermal energy.