Heating a Driveway

[Frunple]

Anyone on here have a heated driveway?
If so, how is it automated? I'm thinking maybe through a weather driver but I'm open to suggestions.
Also, what do you use to heat it, I'm considering a standard water heater with a circulating pump but I still need to dig in a little deeper to be sure.

 

[Deane Johnson]

I don't have one or any experience with it, but the first thing that jumps into my mind is to wonder about thermal energy. Given the cost of heating water, or of using electrical, once thermal were installed I assume it wouldn't cost much of anything to operate.

 

[apostolakisl]

Vail (the ski place) has all of their sidewalks heated. You might be able to contact their engineer and see how they do it. I would bet they turn it on manually though. I don't think any weatherbug type setup would do the trick as snowfall can be very fickle. A number of people had heated driveways where I grew up (homes built in the 60's and 70's) and most of those systems didn't work by the 80's, they were electric.

 

[Deane Johnson]

Here's a site with a bunch of information I stumbled into by Googling "heated sidewalks".

They indicate theirs turns on with a "snow sensor", whatever that is.

http://www.drivewayheating.com/site/page

Deane

 

[pete_c]

I've looked at a similiar setup (not electric though) with paver bricks.

 

[AnthonyZ]

The company that I now work for (building automation, www.westover-usa.com ) has installed the controls for a number of the Colorado ski towns (including parts of Winter Park, Aspen and Vail). In all cases, the heating is done via hydronics and the sensor used to determine when/if to heat is a combo of slab temp, air temp and moisture. An important consideration in implementation is modulating the temp of the water used for snow melt. If you heat the slab with water that is radically different in temp from the slab, you WILL crack the slab. Particularly concrete. We also modulate the pump speed for the same reasons. The idea is to keep the walk clear while minimizing energy consumption and not destroying the surface.