How can I make a ice-melting system to install under my asphalt driveway?

or

THey don't use alternatives because they are too expensive. Grit (e.g. sand) is specifically *not* used because it is worse than salt. 100% salt is used for grit even when it's too cold for it to melt anything.

The hot water heater won't be small; or if it is, the driveway won't be melting snow for more than the first few feet of tubing. The bill to run it will be large. Any have the common sense to use polypropylene glycol, not ethylene glycol - any leaks will kill less of the neighborhood pets.

The ONLY way this makes any sense, and limited sense at that, is if you use solar heat, and are content to have the driveway more effectively melt off when the sun shines (ie, faster and/or more throughly than it would do just from the sun shining on the snow). The cost to do so is still high, but at least it's not an ongoing expense. It would let you relocate heat from where the sun shines to less sunny parts of the driveway.

Not completely true: if you happen to have a hot spring or other source of vast waste heat in your house, the driveway makes as good a place to dump it as any. But that isn't a common problem...

IRTA:

Tim

-- Deep Fryer: a very philosophical monk. Website:

In my state it is all salt, all the time.

Homer's just mad because he didn't get the contract to rip off the taxpayers.

But the shipping costs.....

Wish I had answer...I only have a wild idea: Conductive asphalt!! :) Maybe mix in a conductive filler in the asphalt and make a gigantic power resistor. (I know this idea is full of flaws..but it's good entertainment :) )

D from BC

why not? conductive cement has been done....

Yes, like to Arizona or New Mexico.

Wich bridge was that ? not the bridge some american bought by mistake ?

Colin =^.^=

Ummmm? Kingman, Flagstaff, Williams, Halley Lake (often the COLDEST location in the US), Winslow, Holbrook, and on and on and....

...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | | | E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat | |

You have all the heat energy in the world just 30" or so under the driveway, so the obvious answer is to simply pump this to the surface and use conventional radiant heater channeling proven in this application:

Why would an American want a Canadian bridge, unless it crossed the US-Canada border?

Great idea, if you want to electrocute someone.

Some thing like this geothermal heat pump system:

Check out this patent number: 5763858

I have an APS-3 deicing controller made by Environmental Technology, Inc.

If you are interested in buying it, reply here. It's about a foot by 12 inches by 3 inches and weighs about 5 lbs. You pay the shipping and your estimate of a reasonable price for it. If you want a picture, I'll post it in a convenient location.

Al

The electrical ice melting system in a bridge to nowhere in Alaska? Who wouldn't want that contract? :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

Or he could buy one from ACME. Maybe their snow melting system catches road runners?

??? First time I saw snow in the US was Flagstaff.