zinfendel
December 27th, 2005, 01:19 PM
I posted this in another forum, I guess it really belongs here...>
Thought you guys might like to see this:
http://webpages.charter.net/zarwerks/misc/ShopHeatedWalkwayProject/
This was a wild idea to heat the walkway between my garage and shop for de ice'ing and snow. The element is 16 gauge NiChrome, about 110 feet of it. The "open air temp of this wire with voltage applied would be around 330F. The whole pad radiates about 600W. You can see I was monitoring the element resistance as I was shovelling and levelling cement (19 bags!) into it. I have an ammeter on the circuit that will tell me if it opens or shorts, and a 0-12 hr time.
In hindsight I would have worked out a better way to support the wires, shovelling in the cement pushed them down and I was afraid they would short on the rebar, but they didn't.
End lug washers are brazed onto the NiChrome wire.
So far it has worked well in 2-3 storms, one 16" of snow. The key is to turn it on about 2 hrs before the snow falls.
I will be putting it on an isolation transformer for safety reasons.
Thought you guys might like to see this:
http://webpages.charter.net/zarwerks/misc/ShopHeatedWalkwayProject/
This was a wild idea to heat the walkway between my garage and shop for de ice'ing and snow. The element is 16 gauge NiChrome, about 110 feet of it. The "open air temp of this wire with voltage applied would be around 330F. The whole pad radiates about 600W. You can see I was monitoring the element resistance as I was shovelling and levelling cement (19 bags!) into it. I have an ammeter on the circuit that will tell me if it opens or shorts, and a 0-12 hr time.
In hindsight I would have worked out a better way to support the wires, shovelling in the cement pushed them down and I was afraid they would short on the rebar, but they didn't.
End lug washers are brazed onto the NiChrome wire.
So far it has worked well in 2-3 storms, one 16" of snow. The key is to turn it on about 2 hrs before the snow falls.
I will be putting it on an isolation transformer for safety reasons.
