Heat doesn't rise, heated *air* rises.
With no data on the cost of the energy, was it gas or oil, etc it isn't much to go on.
At least there you have the energy cost, which is way below typical prices in most of the US today.
I'm glad it works for you. The snow that fell here in January was still here in April. We had in the range of 100 inches. That is also a lot of shoveling or snowblowing. I am in a position to take some time off, but not three months. Semi-retired, I did stay home on the really bad days.
I don't mind doing most of the blowing, but if for $200 I could have had it melt, I'd have paid it.
I've heard stories like that before. Same with kids hitting a mailbox with baseball bats and getting injured because it was not moveable.
The issue is not the thermal conductivity of soil, it's whether heat from water tubes embedded in concrete rises, as you stated. It doesn't. Hot air rises. The air trapped in soil, unless you have evidence that it moves, I would doubt that it does.
Fiberglass insulation is mostly air too. It doesn't transport heat via convection very much either, because the air is mostly trapped.
That might be true, but it depends on a lot of factors. How about if the sun is shining on the driveway, for example?
Whatever the temp is of the upper concrete versus the soil under it, the driving force is the temp diff between the hot water in the pipes and the temp of either.
100F to 20F on top, versus 100F to 30F might be an example. You have 80 delta versus 70 delta. Not all that much difference to make the heat go one way versus the other, from what I see.
It is better than gold, but not nearly as good as insulation. There is a reason foam board is used to insulate basement floor even though they are over dirt. I agree it is not an even distribution, but there will always be loss into the dirt.
Per Mayayana:
If somebody is not accustomed to hard work/exercise, I would think that shoveling snow poses a significant risk.
More so than most activities because it's the kind of thing where you keep going no matter what - "Just get it done...".
If I'm in shape, no problem... but if I've been sedentary for months prior....
Per songbird:
I wonder what somebody living up in lake-effect-snow country (like Watertown, NY) would have to say about this.
The one time I was up there, the only bare road that I saw was a rough circle where the two main streets of town crossed.
AFIK, they did not plow up there. Instead they would run road graders to smooth out the snow on the roads.
And I never saw anybody stuck or having problems....
In a book called "Paradise Below Zero" by a guy named Calvin Rutstrom, the author says that their retirement home is in snow country and they have a second main entrance some feet off the ground which they switch over to using once the snow gets high enough. And they just go everywhere via snowmobile.
If we're both digging out to go get groceries or something, we have learned to take a snow shovel with us. On more than one occasion we have dug our way out only to have the plow come along and block our driveway again while we're gone. :)
My snow blower seems to handle the berm OK. Sometimes it takes a few passes, but eventually it cuts through it fine.
We live on a mountain road. When we get a snow event they have a fleet of plows that take turns going up and down our road every hour or so. I find it easier to clear the berm occasionally than wait till it's four feet deep and frozen solid.
Anthony Watson
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