kurtmccaslin
Active Member
The heat tape that I have used has a built in thermostat. If you can find one with a thermostat that kicks on around 35 F, then it might be fairly efficient. The heat capacity of air is low. That means it does not take a lot of BTU's to heat it up. If you use the heat tape to heat the air inside of the pipe to just above freezing, it will not take a lot of electricity. This means that you may need some insulation to make sure you are not heating the ambient air. Water has a much higher heat capacity, and takes a lot more energy to heat.
That's about all I remember from my thermodynamics course 40 years ago.
That's about all I remember from my thermodynamics course 40 years ago.
