Passive Snowmelt

MN Renovator · 07-25-20, 09:15 PM

With absolute perfect efficiency and the heat only being in contact with the snow to melt it, it takes 288,000BTU of heat to melt a ton of frozen water(snow in this case). If you've ever shoveled a heavy snowfall, you know how heavy it is and how much work it is to dig out a driveway. Now add the inefficiencies like a very large uninsulated surface that is in direct contact to the air, wind, and ground below it and you might slowly realize that using a heated driveway is one very expensive and incredibly huge waste of resources to clear snow. IMO, doing this with solar in the winter isn't likely to do much unless you've got an impractically huge storage tank that stored the heat before the snow clouds come in. I'm not talking about 80 gallon solar storage tanks, that won't do anything.

Seriously, try to take a weed burner torch and try to melt some ice, or pour a 5 gallon bucket of hot water on some snow and see how little it does, then consider how much more it takes to clear an entire driveway of snow. It's significantly cheaper to buy a snowblower, both for the equipment and it's usage.

If you want to be lazy, pay a snow removal company to clear the snow for you. If you want to do it with the least environmental impact, an electric snowblower would be better. ..but even a ****ty 2-stroke gas snowblower will still be better for the environment than using natural gas, propane, or electricity to heat a driveway to clear it of snow.

Hope this information is useful, I'm from Minnesnowta.

07-25-20, 09:15 PM	#2
MN Renovator Less usage=Cheaper bills Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Minneapolis, MN Posts: 939 Thanks: 41 Thanked 116 Times in 90 Posts	With absolute perfect efficiency and the heat only being in contact with the snow to melt it, it takes 288,000BTU of heat to melt a ton of frozen water(snow in this case). If you've ever shoveled a heavy snowfall, you know how heavy it is and how much work it is to dig out a driveway. Now add the inefficiencies like a very large uninsulated surface that is in direct contact to the air, wind, and ground below it and you might slowly realize that using a heated driveway is one very expensive and incredibly huge waste of resources to clear snow. IMO, doing this with solar in the winter isn't likely to do much unless you've got an impractically huge storage tank that stored the heat before the snow clouds come in. I'm not talking about 80 gallon solar storage tanks, that won't do anything. Seriously, try to take a weed burner torch and try to melt some ice, or pour a 5 gallon bucket of hot water on some snow and see how little it does, then consider how much more it takes to clear an entire driveway of snow. It's significantly cheaper to buy a snowblower, both for the equipment and it's usage. If you want to be lazy, pay a snow removal company to clear the snow for you. If you want to do it with the least environmental impact, an electric snowblower would be better. ..but even a ****ty 2-stroke gas snowblower will still be better for the environment than using natural gas, propane, or electricity to heat a driveway to clear it of snow. Hope this information is useful, I'm from Minnesnowta.