3099: Neighbor-Source Heat Pump

Neighbor-Source Heat Pump

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Title text: The installation of the pipes on the inside of the insulation can be challenging, especially when the neighbor could come home at any minute.

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Explanation

This explanation is incomplete: This page was created by A HOT-TEMPERED NEIGHBOR. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

Since the energy crisis of the 1970s, electric air source heat pumps have been offered as a more efficient alternative to burning fuel. Much like the operation of a typical refrigerator or air-conditioner, heat pumps use a relatively small amount of power to move heat to where it is most needed (away from where heat is not required or deeper cold can be tolerably dispersed). This is most commonly and conveniently done using a heat exchanger installed on the outside wall of the building/apartment, which can extract heat from the ambient outside air and use that to heat the inside of the household, concentrating the energy to provide temperatures typically over and above those originally present in either location. Because of the varying nature of the external climate, this is less efficient (or at least more technically difficult) in colder weather, the time when the heating would be most appreciated. Although the effectiveness of cold climate heat pumps has significantly improved in recent decades, heat pumps still suffer from a poor reputation compared to combustion heating due to their poor cold weather performance, resulting in discomfort, high electricity usage/cost, or both.

An alternate method of harvesting heat is the ground source heat pump. This does the same job of extracting heat energy from its surroundings (pipes sent deep into the ground, rather than just being exposed to the air by the side of the building), and benefits from the more constant temperature of the pedosphere (or deeper), which is often below the frost-line, always giving a relatively warm heat-source to extract energy from, even in the depths of winter. If set up to also cool a home, in warm conditions, it also finds the same reliably small range of ground-temperatures useful in being cooler than the ambient air of summer, thus being more suited to disperse excess heat into whilst cooling the indoor environment. A further method, the water source heat pump, similarly makes use of a sufficiently large body of water's tendency to provide a near constant 4°C temperature (whatever the external conditions) in its depths.

In this comic, Randall goes further and finds a handy source of heat (in winter) and cold (in summer)… the house of a neighbor, which is itself being actively maintained (perhaps by more traditional heating and cooling technology) at a temperature which approaches his own preference for temperature. Being thermally inverted to the current seasonal conditions, it would be even more economical to tap into for heat during cold times and coolness during the warmer ones. That is, it would be for Randall, not the neighbor who is now forced to effectively air-condition two buildings, instead of the one they thought they were maintaining. This is accomplished by sending the pipes (that might have been just buried in the ground) from the heat-exchange unit off into the walls of the neighboring house to tap into the artificially-maintained temperature there.

While the small-scale application suggested here can thus be assumed to cause neighborly trouble, this concept has been in use at much larger scales for about the last ten years with virtually no repercussions — which is largely due to the tapped neighboring premises not being residential buildings. On top of this, district heating, or "neighborhood heating" is a real system where a centralized heat source provides heating for multiple buildings in the neighborhood, either through a dedicated heat source (created to exploit the economies of scale) just for this purpose, or else taking waste heat from some other local amenity (e.g. a waste incinerator) that is producing sufficient quantities to spare as a side-effect of its core operation. This is humorously in contrast to the comic where someone steals heat from one of their neighbors as one might steal Cable TV.

The title text addresses some of the issues involved when trying to properly install the Neighbor-Source Heat Pump, without the neighbor realizing that they are about to be leeched from in this way. It may already be quite difficult to interfere with the structure of the neighbouring house (in this case, by feeding pipes up into at least two of its wall cavities) without this being noticed once the absent neighbour returns, but to do so under the imminent risk of being observed at work by the neighbor arriving home would take even more care to accomplish.

This was the first of two comics in a row that advocate putting things in other people's walls, as this was followed by 3100: Alert Sound.

Transcript

[Two houses are shown next to each other. They have almost identical facades with a base, two windows on either side of a door and a chimney to the right on the roof. But next to the left house there is a small box with two light-blue pipes going from the house to the box. From the bottom of the box two similar light-blue pipes goes a bit down under ground, the left further than the right, and then they bend to the right and goes under the neighboring house to the right. The upper pipe closest to the ground is shown to enter the wall of the right house, going almost up to the roof, and then bending sharply around going down below ground. Then it goes under ground to the other side of the house and do the same in the right wall, going up and down. Where it goes under ground, it connects to the the other pipe that has gone all the way straight under the house.]

[Caption below the panel:]

A covertly-installed Neighbor-Source Heat Pump takes advantage of the fact that your neighbor keeps their house cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

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Discussion

My aunt used to live in an apartment that, due to lousy insulation, had neighbor apartment heating, which is simpler and less risky than what Randall proposes. 2001:1C02:1A9D:9700:6D49:4C64:123C:A502 06:26, 7 June 2025 (UTC)

similarly, if you live on an upper floor of an old building in a cold climate, you are likely already doing neighbor-source heating due to the magic of the Stack effect! i know people in top floor apartments who run their heating far less than i do :-) --Urwa (talk) 16:18, 7 June 2025 (UTC)

similarly, I live in a skyscraper in Hamburg where winters can be quite cold. And my heating was kaput. And the next termin with a technician in spring. But the temperatures inside my apartment never fell to values where I would have to sleep in a pullover... 2A02:2455:1960:4000:757C:FFAC:A492:CBCA 07:13, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

The role of the title text in re-framing the joke: This is a great technical breakdown of the heat pump concept and the core premise of stealing a neighbor's conditioned air. However, I believe the current explanation understates the crucial role of the title text in delivering the full punchline by completely re-framing the situation.

The comic panel itself is deliberately ambiguous. A first-time reader might assume the protagonist lives in the house on the right and is tapping into the external unit of the "neighbor" on the left. In this scenario, the protagonist seems comically inept. They would be capturing the waste heat from their neighbor's air conditioner in the summer (when they need cooling) and the waste cold from their neighbor's heater in the winter (when they need heating) — the exact opposite of what they actually need. The joke would be about their fundamental misunderstanding of how heat pumps work.

The title text, "The installation of the pipes on the inside of the insulation can be challenging, especially when the neighbor could come home at any minute," completely flips this on its head. It clarifies that:

1. The protagonist is the person on the left.
2. The pipes have been secretly installed inside the neighbor's house, using the neighbor's entire temperature-controlled living space as a perfect, stable heat source/sink.

This elevates the joke from being about a scientifically illiterate person to a hilarious, high-stakes covert operation conducted by a diabolically clever one. The true absurdity isn't just the concept of a "neighbor-source" pump, but the mental image of the protagonist sneaking into their neighbor's house to perform major HVAC work inside their walls.

I would suggest editing the explanation to highlight this reveal. The title text isn't just "addressing some of the issues"; it's the key that transforms the butt of the joke from the protagonist into their unsuspecting neighbor. Omermor (talk) 08:04, 7 June 2025 (UTC)

The comic isn't ambiguous. The house on the left has extended its heat-pump 'source' pipes into the house on the right, and there's no other way to interpret it. 92.23.2.228 18:16, 7 June 2025 (UTC)

I disagree with the GPT response. I think the panel is pretty clear about what’s going on. 2607:FB90:E9E1:D3C0:B435:3354:D230:EA3 15:05, 7 June 2025 (UTC)

I tried editing earlier today, but was having problems getting it to go through. I was attempting to add in a comment about how this is essentially an extreme form of service leeching akin to connecting to a neighbor's WiFi without permission. RegularSizedGuy (talk) 02:23, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

I am pretty sure the panel is intentionally ambiguous, and I also believe Randal deliberately tried to deceive the reader into this false interpretation:
We are conditioned to read and process information from left to right. This applies not just to text, but to diagrams, timelines, and action sequences. We instinctively look for a cause-and-effect or action-and-result relationship that flows in this direction.
Randall uses this to set the trap: On the left is a house with a large, visible HVAC unit. On the right is a house with pipes running to it.
Our left-to-right instinct immediately suggests a flow of action from the left to the right. The unit on the left is the "source" or "cause," and the house on the right is the "destination" or "effect."
This visual grammar perfectly supports the initial, incorrect assumption that the protagonist lives on the right and is trying to tap into the neighbor's unit on the left. The layout makes this flawed interpretation feel natural and intuitive. We are visually nudged into seeing the protagonist as the inept buffoon. --Omermor (talk) 17:50, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

I agree, but totally oppositely to the way you apparently see it. Even while reading "from left to right", we see that the house with the unit is the "cause" and the house on the right is subject to the "effect", the effect of being leached. Which, to me is totally unambiguous, a direct untrapped joke.

Or, to look at it another way, the right-hand house does not have the heat-exchanger unit next to it. If you were led up to either building and asked to comment about that, you'd consider the HEU to be part of the left-hand house, and not something unsuspectingly inflicted upon its occupants. The conduit/piping to the right-hand house is clearly far more intentionally inconspicuous (so long as you aren't caught installing it), with purposeful distance to allay the suspicions that arriving home and finding something visibly into your walls from an appliance clearly associated with your own property. Ergo, the box is legitimately something belonging to the left house, the piping to the right house is illegitimate modification/'trespass' upon that other property. 92.23.2.228 22:18, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

I see what you mean, and I agree that the heat-exchanger unit is unambiguously part of the left house. But my interpretation was that the left house is using a regular HEU to heat/cool their house, while Randal, who lives on the right house, siphons the excess heat/cold put out by this unit, and channels it to his house via pipes. {{unsigned|Omermor|05:44, 9 June 2025

This is a "Neighbour-Source" Heat Pump, not a "Neighbour's Heat Pump"-Source. And the "excess heat/cold" put out by this unit is the exact opposite of the "cold/heat" that the house takes, you'd be on firmer footing if you said that Right had plumbed themselves into Left's houseward pipes (which could have been easily drawn) to just extend the flow-cycle into two houses. Instead, it superficially looks like it's a Ground-Source HP, but with the 'ambient' pipes sneaking off into Right's walls rather than properly drilled down (and/or spread out, not quite so deep below a wider spread of land). 92.23.2.228 09:38, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

How many? > difficult to interfere with the structure ..., by feeding pipes up into at least two of its wall cavities It is not necessarily two or more cavities. A single loop would gain some small benefit. A better plan would be to use the typical inside air handler (fins, fans) as the leeching machine. I think it is drawn symmetrical to look pretty. --PRR (talk) 21:04, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

next comic is 3100: 17 SDGs. 2001:4450:8167:7900:186d:5dab:3643:b673 (talk) 12:22, 9 June 2025 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Of course it's a joke, but simply running pipes into the neighbour's walls isn't going to do much. The pipes would be nestled in the house's exterior wall insulation, and adjacent to drywall, and completely unable to transfer any thermal energy in any direction. A high volume of convective air (or water) exchange is essential. So if the neighbour didn't notice the "unobtrusive" major HVAC work, they would certainly notice the fan blowing hot air from the wall into their living room in the summer!  :) 165.225.208.148 15:39, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

If you're relying upon convection to bring heat to the piping of a ground-source heatpump, then I think you've probably dug too deep. The type of ground that you use as a heatpump source generally doesn't do anything much but conduct heat (full geothermal might be otherwise, but that becomes less heat-pump and more "using a hot aquifer as a free boiler"), much less free flow (or get blown by fans).

Obviously, air-source pumps may be significantly better at exploiting latent energy from freely-(/forced-)flowing air, and perhaps water-source will induce some fluid cycling around its dunked piping, but it's perfeclty possible to force a radiator-effect (either direction) against a static medium, only the interior of the pipes themselves being moving fluid to convey enough of the pump's heat/cold through the pipe walls to draw in/push out the temperature differential that the system needs to do to allow the other side of the process to push out/draw in accordingly. 82.132.219.135 01:17, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I exaggerated for effect (only slightly) when I wrote "any thermal energy", because obviously there will be at least some heat conduction across any thermal gradient. However, the efficiency will be abysmal, and with my own GSHP, if the well pipes were buried in dry ground, the unit would not operate for more than a minute before tripping off due to the refrigerant pressure safety switch. It needs flowing water in order to operate successfully, preferably lots of it, which my local geology fortunately possesses. And indeed, every air-source heat pump I have seen has fans in both heat exchangers. Without those, they would trip off quickly too, as would Randall's NSHP.165.225.208.148 13:33, 10 June 2025 (UTC)
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