Why Did I Install a Heated Driveway in Buffalo, NY? This is Why - Episode 38 [12-26-2020]

[@spartus56996]

I just watched your videos of the install, holy mother of all DIY ..... I'm stunned, I have never seen work like this come from people who do it every day for a living, beautiful job !!

[@DeckerChristopherJ]

Thanks Robert! Really appreciate having you as a viewer (and hopefully a subscriber 😉) and I appreciate you taking the time to leave such a nice comment! Thanks for watching!!!

[@anna-is6tt]

Smart idea

[@adambrown1813]

Love your videos, thank you for taking time to show us and explain your system. I’m installing radiant flooring in my shop that is 24x40 which would give me 3 zones of 320 feet each, in your opinion, how would you go about adding a 13x6 apron at the doorway for snow melt. Do you think I could make it a four zone system and control the aprons heat thru the manifold or would you add a separate zone for the snow melt?

[@DeckerChristopherJ]

Hey Adam! Thanks for the compliments! It sounds like your garage is similar to mine, only slightly larger. Mine is 24' wide x 32' deep. I used 1/2" pex at 6" centers for a few rows in front of the overhead door, and then went to 12" centers.I also had 3 loops, and by the time I included the leaders (supply and return) from the slab through the 6" pipe and into my basement to the manifold, I was at around 330' each. So far it seems to work well, so it's hard to say what I would change if I did to over. I might've kept the loops lengths a little shorter and maybe gone with 4 loops instead of 3. That also might've let me install the loops a little tighter, at say 9" instead of 12". It works great, and has kept my garage at 60ºF all winter, including in January with outdoors temps of -10ºF, but I do notice the floor being a few degrees cooler towards the end of each loop when I look at it with the FLIR. Not a big deal, but pex is cheap, and you can't add more later if you're not happy. As far as the snowmelt, I will give you my opinion, but keep in mind I'm just a DIY guy sharing his build on KZbin, not a Pro 😀. This really is going to depend on what you're expecting from that 13x6 apron. If you're expecting it to be clear and stay clear, I would 100% put it on its own zone, with its own pump. That way it can run independent of the garage floor, and it will most likely need to run a lot more often than the garage when it's on. If you just want it to melt whenever the garage is on without any independent control, you COULD just add it to the garage zone, but if the garage doesn't run long enough to melt all the snow off, you will get ice, and that's worse than snow. If it was me, I would put that apron on is own zone with its own pump and manifold. Use 5/8" pex for it, spaced 6" on-center. That is such a small apron, you probably can get away with 1 loop and no manifold (you'd have to do that math: kzbin.info/www/bejne/anPSf4GCbrCDgpo ). Put the pump on a switch like my setup, and turn it on when you want the apron melted, and off when its done. You could put the Tekmar socket in for automatic control, but spending $1k in controls for a 13x6 apron is a little extreme in my opinion. Just use an Aqustat to control the boiler pump, and it will run itself. For that small of an apron you could probably just leave it on all winter and not notice a huge cost difference. Its' not going to take long to heat and melt that. You could also use my re-wiring video and give the garage priority, but you're only talking an extra 12,000 BTU's to melt that slab at 150 Btu's per sq ft, so your boiler / heater should be able to handle both together just fine if there's room. Anyways, hope that helps. Let me know if you have any additional questions and I'll do my best to answer them or make another video. Thanks for watching!

[@stacieskelley]

How'd it do this Snovember2022?

[@DeckerChristopherJ]

Hey Stacie! It did great! Fortunately I wasn't in one of the harder hit areas, but we still received a good 10-12". I did a live video (my first) here with a quick update yesterday: kzbin.info/www/bejne/n2nIpJd-hqyAb6M Unfortunately the wifi dropped as I got away from the house so that is a part 2 to wrap it up. Thanks for watching my videos and taking the time to comment! 😊 Hopefully you'll come back to watch more! The Timelapse from this weekends storm will be posted next Sunday morning!

[@markbeckham7298]

Wow, or you could just do what everyone else does and move to Florida!