Heated driveway information?

[larrybud2002]

Sorry, "luxury"... before I get flamed for a typo.

[Jim Elbrecht]

And if you happen to live someplace that doesn't get too cold.

[that's 'voila', BTW]

Here in NY that would work fine for an early October snow--- provided you had tons of water, a slightly pitched driveway & great drainage.

As soon as there was any frost in the ground it would just create an incredible hazard.

I challenge anyone north of, say, Virginia, to give this method a try on a short section of sidewalk.

Let us know how much water it takes to clear a few square feet of frozen concrete of 3' of snow.

-snip-

Are you trolling or do you live somewhere that you've avoided the pleasures of dealing with much snow? Nothing like a little water under a snowfall to 'make it easier to shovel', right?

Jim

[Mark]

Obviously (well, perhaps not) he was making an attempt at humor.

[... ...]

Forget the heated drieway idea. They are not worth the time effort or expense. I worked on a system in stalled in a sidewalk at a bank(electric) and I worked at acolledge that also had a heated walk way. You can sit here and cost average the the system to death and the one thing that everyone forgets is that melting snow or ice turns into water and water turns back into ice. Can you start to see the picture? Snow or ice accumulates, system turns automaticly or manually , snow and ice melt ,system turns off . walk or drive returns to freezing temp and mlted snow or ice reforms into ice so the system turns back on........... What usually happens is the stupid thing stays on longer than it is off. As far as the bank s system , I never went bac to that job. As far as the colledge they just turned it off and went back to shovels and ice melt.

Bill

[HeatMan]

I have been lead to believe that electric heating cables cannot be repaired. This may have something to do with the heating and hot spots where the repairs are made.

Leaking water lines are easy to find under a slab, at least to me.

[Stormin Mormon]

When I took a heating course, years ago, they told us that the regional transit service in Rochester NY installed a heated parking lot. It isn't needed to keep it warm enough to pitch a tent and sleep out, but warm enough to melt the snow. If memory serves, the instructor said that the heat bill for the parking lot was less than the snow plowing service charged. Seems the snow lands, evaporates, and the vapor floats away.

Just what I was remembering.

[Ed Clarke]

"Woalla"? "Woalla"??? Jesus... what are kids doing in school these days?

[artinist]

well there has to be some kind of drainage for any kind of heating system. there will be plenty of water to deal with just from melting the snow regardless of how it comes to melt.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

We are expecting 12 to 15" of snow tomorrow. That equates to maybe 1" of water over the surface. Considering the snow will be coming for 20 hours or so, just how much water will be needed to heat the driveway enough to melt all of that snow.?

You do bring up a good point though, with any system there needs to be some provision for runoff. Just a hell of a lot more with a water system.