A heat pump is a device that “transports” heat energy from one place to another place. This is the basic feature of how heat pumps work. An air conditioner is a form of Heat Pump. It “extracts” heat from indoors and pumps it to the outside. So on the indoor side, you have cool air blowing out of the vent, after passing through a heat exchanger. On the outdoor side you have warm air blowing out of another heat exchanger. The heat exchanger on the indoor side is called an evaporator and the heat exchanger on the outdoor side is called a condenser.
