Common failure analysis of domestic heat pumps and air conditioners
The fate and lifetime of products is key to circular economic concepts. Even though circular concepts are planned to be adopted in the close future in several economic areas like the European Economic Area, there is a knowledge gap on the fate of heat pumps (HPs) and air conditioners (ACs) after their commissioning. Only few studies are available in which a relevant database was collected or available to be studied. Either to review the root causes for failures leading either to servicing or the dismantling of a system or to gather information on the estimated useful life (EUL) of HPs or ACs. As part of the German HP resilience project in this work, a new approach was chosen to gather information and collect data able to fill this knowledge gap. Internet platforms dealing with used products were monitored over years to build a specific database for HPs and ACs. The dataset comprises data on used markets of almost all EU member states. Currently, about several ten thousand ads of used HP and AC products were identified and classified. The database contains still functional but also used HPs and about 10% of totally damaged HPs. This database is exploited for the first time. The first knowledge gain aims for the analysis of selling reasons and root cause analysis for failures. The dataset, current findings, and its further potential use is presented. Further challenges to deploy this dataset for lifetime analysis is discussed.