Hi and thanks in advance for all the great solutions!
I live in Toronto and it still gets pretty cold here despite global warming. I have a drain - you could call it a sump - in the driveway near the house. About 1' square and maybe 2.5' deep. The "take-out" pipe is 4" abs with a
180 bend. The whole sump freezes solid - which is fine until we have one of those sudden midwinter thaws or a rainstorm. Then all the water has nowhere to go and the driveway becomes a pool which inevitably freezes and becomes a rink. And the mailman won't deliver.
I have, in the past, wrapped that heated cable stuff (intended for eavestroughs I think) round a sturdy piece of pipe to make a kind of crude immersion heater. It works well enough but the thermostats on those things tend to be a bit iffy and it has let me down. It also looks pretty awful. Before I make another one, does anybody have a better idea? I can't believe it's such a rare problem but no-one at the Home Despot or anywhere else seems to have a solution.
Thanks
I live in Toronto and it still gets pretty cold here despite global warming. I have a drain - you could call it a sump - in the driveway near the house. About 1' square and maybe 2.5' deep. The "take-out" pipe is 4" abs with a
180 bend. The whole sump freezes solid - which is fine until we have one of those sudden midwinter thaws or a rainstorm. Then all the water has nowhere to go and the driveway becomes a pool which inevitably freezes and becomes a rink. And the mailman won't deliver.
I have, in the past, wrapped that heated cable stuff (intended for eavestroughs I think) round a sturdy piece of pipe to make a kind of crude immersion heater. It works well enough but the thermostats on those things tend to be a bit iffy and it has let me down. It also looks pretty awful. Before I make another one, does anybody have a better idea? I can't believe it's such a rare problem but no-one at the Home Despot or anywhere else seems to have a solution.
Thanks