Snow and Ice Melting

The safe and secure interaction between humanity and its architecture is often times challenged by mother nature. How does an ambulance navigate up or down an emergency driveway in the midst of severe winter snowstorm?  How can we ensure the handicap ramp or steps for a day care center are free of ice? How can we ensure that seniors are not forced to move out of their neighborhoods because they no longer have the physical capabilities to shovel snow?  At the same time that we can find good and rational application for melting snow and ice we find conflict in generating heat and power only to release it back into the environment in a negative way. For each position there must be a way to design systems which achieve the desired outcomes for least parasitic losses of heat and power.
 

Graphic lent to www.healthyheating.com courtesy of the National Radiant Design Center , Copyright (c) 2005, NRDC, All Rights Reserved

Online forum discussions have revealed that not only are residential clients unsure of what snow melting means they also have no preconceived ideas as to the costs associated with meeting performance expectations. Helping them to ask the right questions is the key to making the right recommendations for controls. What they want, when they want it, and for how long it is required, are just a few key questions to ask. If they do not know, then it is up to the specifer to suggest what makes sense for the application. After all, it is the snow melt system designer’s recommendations for control strategies that will directly influence performance and operational costs. It is unlikely the homeowner will understand that the scope of running a snow melt system is exponentially higher than running a space heating
system simply because of the transient or unpredictable conditions and the magnitude of design loads required to satisfy client expectations.
On the other hand, commercial clients have defined expectations based on liability, client access, safety and so on. The residential client may have similar concerns but the degree might be different. For example, the commercial client may not accept any snow build up
on walks and steps simply to avoid liability exposure from pedestrian traffic while a homeowner may be willing to tolerate some snow build up during heavy snowfall as long as it melts within a reasonable period. Both applications may be exposed to the same snow load but the control strategy over fuel, power and load calculations for equipment is different.    

Click here for part II, Manual Controls     
Click here for part III, Idle/On Controls & System Performance      
Click here for part IV, Area Free Ratio and Frequency Percentile  
Click here for part V, Conclusion      

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