Automatic Snow-Melt Systems

As winter months approach, many of your customers will begin dreading the hassle of removing ice and snow from their driveways, roofs and gutters. Whether it’s for their home or a commercial business, maybe an electric snow-melt system is for them.

An increasing number of home and business owners in cold-weather areas are turning to snow-melt systems to target trouble spots, to prevent slip-and-fall accidents and to eliminate the need for shoveling completely.

How They Work
The systems utilize a boiler, which heats water and pumps it through the tubing which has been run under the driveway, parking lot, porch steps, etc. The process works similarly on roofs to prevent ice dam and icicle formations, which can lead to roof leaks, internal building damage and possible mold issues. Falling icicles can create lower roof damage, deck damage and safety issues.

Manual vs. Automatic Systems
Systems with a manual control rely on the owner or manager remembering to flip a switch in advance of a storm coming. Once a large layer of snow is already on the pavement, a manual system won’t be fast enough to melt it. “We’ve found most people don’t want to deal with a switch,” says a marketing manager for an electric heat-transfer system company in Wauconda, Ill. “We have one or two slab-mounted sensors that automatically measure moisture surface and the temperature of the slab. When sensors indicate snow accumulation, the heating cables turn on, warming the slab to 60 degrees and then turns it off.”

Instead of heating an entire driveway, customers also can choose to have “tire track heating,” which only covers those areas where a vehicle would be moving in and out of the area.

New Construction vs. Existing
It’s easy to put snowmelt systems in a new project, but can it be done to driveways and other areas if they’re already in place? “It’s probably easier if they’re re-paving, saw-cutting the existing surface, and then they can put the cables in,” the manager says. “Typically these are put into new construction or ripping out the existing.”

She adds to make sure you have a way to dispose of the melted ice and snow at the bottom of the driveway so that it doesn’t ice up on the incline. “On the East Coast, we see a lot of steep incline driveways,” she says.

In addition, homeowners may need to have their electrician “up their amps” if they intend to install such a system, she says.