You don’t need someone on the internet to tell you how terrible it is to shovel snow. It’s an annoying chore that can put a real wrench in your plans to leave the house. Wouldn’t life be so much easier if your driveway and walkways were always snow-free no matter what? This is possible through a snow melt system installation. Here’s how it works.
Radiant Heating
Snow melt systems are a form of radiant heating. Most heating systems rely on heating the air in your home. Your furnace burns fuel to heat air and adds it to your home via ducts. A radiant heating system heats surfaces, which then can heat air and warm your home. Typically, this would be the floor and, in some cases, the ceiling.
Pipes are installed under your floorboards, and hot water is typically used to heat the floor. It essentially acts like a boiler under your floor, but it can run much much cooler than a boiler since it is in direct contact with the surface it is heating.
The other option uses electricity to heat by placing a mat of connected wires underneath the surface that needs to be heated.
Your new snow melt system does the same thing as a home radiant heating system, but the goal isn’t to heat your home. Instead, the warm water beneath your driveway’s asphalt is just warm enough to melt snow.
The Costs
It’s hard to estimate the exact cost because it depends on factors such as how large is the area the system covers, how expensive electricity is for you, and the typical yearly snowfall. A well-used system might only run you $100 a year in costs every winter. An easy way to think about it is that annual cost and the initial installation cost is freeing you of all of that frustrating labor or shoveling your driveway.
Want to say goodbye to shoveling snow for good? Give AWS a call at (516) 217-2196 or fill out an online contact form.