Propane Powered Ice / Snow Melter ???

[hddnis]

Sensible Nick,

You may be an engineer, good for you, I'm sure you are a good one.

My first hand experience is running a snow and ice removal business. I make good money doing it.

We use diesel fired snow melters. We use propane fired torches to melt snow on some properties where chemical snow melters cannot be used. One account is a botanical garden and any chemicals must be specifically approved, ice melters are not approved due to potential damage to the soil. I don't fully agree, but they pay me to do it their way. The main point would be that their cost per square yard is the same as using chemical ice melters, so basically propane is not an outrageous idea.

We use and install diesel fired, propane fired, wood fired, natural gas fired, coal fired, electric fired and geo-thermal in ground ice and snow melting systems that heat the ground. This is very often less expensive, more proactive and better for the environment than Plow, Sand and Salt programs (PSS)

What we have found is that the traditional PSS is not always the best solution. For example the snow melters in many cases burn less diesel than trucking the snow away. We turn it into water and send it down the storm drain, where it will go anyway. Less polution, less congestion on the roads, fewer trucks for us to maintain.

So, we can agree to disagree I guess. For my part I'm going to do my best to help the OP make something that will work based on what I know and have built or bought myself. I know his idea may not seem to be the very best, but a lot of good things have come from what others thought to be silly. You can either encourage a hobby and learning and progress, or you can say it won't work, without running any numbers, with no first hand experience, based only on your gut feeling. Think about it.



Mr. HE

 

[SensibleNick]

Sensible Nick,

You may be an engineer, good for you, I'm sure you are a good one.

My first hand experience is running a snow and ice removal business. I make good money doing it.

We use diesel fired snow melters. We use propane fired torches to melt snow on some properties where chemical snow melters cannot be used. One account is a botanical garden and any chemicals must be specifically approved, ice melters are not approved due to potential damage to the soil. I don't fully agree, but they pay me to do it their way. The main point would be that their cost per square yard is the same as using chemical ice melters, so basically propane is not an outrageous idea.

We use and install diesel fired, propane fired, wood fired, natural gas fired, coal fired, electric fired and geo-thermal in ground ice and snow melting systems that heat the ground. This is very often less expensive, more proactive and better for the environment than Plow, Sand and Salt programs (PSS)

What we have found is that the traditional PSS is not always the best solution. For example the snow melters in many cases burn less diesel than trucking the snow away. We turn it into water and send it down the storm drain, where it will go anyway. Less polution, less congestion on the roads, fewer trucks for us to maintain.

So, we can agree to disagree I guess. For my part I'm going to do my best to help the OP make something that will work based on what I know and have built or bought myself. I know his idea may not seem to be the very best, but a lot of good things have come from what others thought to be silly. You can either encourage a hobby and learning and progress, or you can say it won't work, without running any numbers, with no first hand experience, based only on your gut feeling. Think about it.

Mr. HE

Firstly, Thanks. I am. :thumbsup:

*Acknowledgement of mutual approval of each other's professions/experience*

Don't get me wrong: I'm not looking at this as a pissing match. I'm totally happy to listen to/appreciate other's opinions, and yes, I'm sure that in some cases melting the ice with thermal energy is going to be the only usable answer. As you state yourself: A botanical garden is one case with a justifiable reason for avoiding salt. Can't argue there. Runways are another... though Oslo in Norway (for example) don't do that because they see it as environmentally irresponsible. They do fine with well organised ploughing/brushing, and have only ever stopped operating once due to heavy snow. For an Hour I think...

So.. Heat can be justified... But a Gravel driveway? Seriously? Sure.. If you throw enough energy at it the ice will melt, but if it were your own wouldn't you just grit it?

Again I agree with you when you say that Trucking snow away does indeed use fuel, but in this case that's not a consideration. The OP was asking about local Ice

For my part I'll be trying to encourage the OP to take what I see as the easier, less expensive, longer lasting, environmentally responsible, (and totally boring) option.

*************

Gut feeling aside, let's go with your experience. If I may draw on your knowledge, I'd like to ask some questions.

1. Would you say that a steep gravel drive, of 400' length is going to be easy to melt the ice on, while avoiding the problem of molten water re-freezing?

2. Which will take the most time?
a) Melting ice on a 400' driveway with propane
b) Sand/salting the driveway

3. Which will have the most lasting effect?
a) Melting ice on a 400' driveway with propane
b) Sand/salting the driveway

4. Which do you see as the most environmentally responsible solution in this scenario
a) Melting ice on a 400' driveway
b) Sand/salting the driveway

Anyway: Whatever the mixed opinions, I genuinely look forward to seeing a space-heater concoction being whacked together, and look forward to the results.

NC4AB: Please do Let us know how it goes: even if it's a colossal flop we'll all learn something from it I'm sure.

Moving away from the ice thing..... Aside from heating stuff, it may have another use. Here in Sweden the road-crews use propane torches for killing weeds in some of the cobbled areas: It's another case where chemicals are not an option, and fire is seen as the lesser of two evils....

So it may work for that use too... unless um... unless you're in a forest: then that may not be such a neat idea.. :ashamed:

 

[yankeerider]

What about building a device that heats sand or other grit before dropping it on the driveway? No salt, but the hot grit should melt into the ice just enough to be captured there instead of sliding off? Seems to me it'd be more efficient use of fuel than evaporating all the ice.

 

[Deere Dude]

I gotta see that machine when it's done.
I lived in a woods with a steep gravel drive where the ice didn't melt at all because of the shade from the trees. I went to the city near me and bought a yard of sand and gravel mixed, actually it was Calcium Chloride I think and put the stuff in barrels near the bad spot in the drive. When it is really cold out I only want to be outside for a few minutes, so just taking a little scoop and flinging some of it around does that quite easily. The sand and salt starts working almost right away and is good through the next small snowfall or so. One yard on a turn around like yours will last for years and will probably cost $20 or so. Some towns will give you a few 5 gallon buckets full for free and that will lost quite awhile.
I hope ypour invention works, but I couldn't see myself sitting outside at 10-20 degrees waiting for the ice to melt when just throwing a little sand and salt around would only take 1 minute. :thumbsup:

 

[pat32rf]

I like Jake's idea of laying some pex or similar piping under the problem area and then finding some way to heat the antifreeze in it. Either picking up ground/water table heat, (like my geothermal) or a wood fired boiler. Since he is in a much warmer area than I am, I think that a couple hundred feet of piping buried 4' down should pick up enough heat to do the job (he is only trying to melt a little area of his 400' if I read it right).
I have tried melting ice in frozen culverts with propane. Hot water does it faster.
Toronto and other cities have propane powered snow melters, but they have no way to truck the snow away fast enough, and tax money to buy propane....

 

[2458n]

I have the same driveway. Anyone can live on flat ground. I usually plow half the drive top to bottom with the Kubota. The other half I leave covered in snow. On the days that the icey drizzle covers everthing making the hill dangerous I scrape the snow and ice off the other half. Salt and grit are the way to go when both sides are slick. When it is really bad the car or truck is left down by the road and you walk down through the flower beds and bushes. I have been unable to make any use of the 20lb. propane and torches.

 

[hddnis]

Couple of thoughts here, I've been chewing this over in my mind and I got a chance to go out to the yard and look at some of the stuff we've got.


Our smallest ice melter is 1.5 million BTU's per hour and propane. It heats an area 3' wide x 8' long. It has two 100lb tanks on the tongue. I don't recall how long they last, but I know that we used it a lot and hardly ever filled the tanks. Ground speed was about walking speed, pulled by a garden tractor. Really cold or thick spots you had to slow down for. It sounds about like a jet taking off.


As Nick has pointed out it takes a lot of heat. Leaving the merits of heat vs. chemical out of it, anytime you warm something up it takes energy. For a couple of storms a year I would guess that fuel won't be a huge expense. The goal here would be to thaw the ice to water and keep it above freezing just long enough for it run off or soak into the soil.

Our experience with both granular and liquid ice melter on gravel is that they melt through the ice, making small holes, but leave a layer of ice on the gravel. Traction is not improved enough to merit the expense of the material.

Sand always helps traction, and on steeper roads or walks we use 3/4minus gravel. The equipment to store, spread and clean-up sand and gravel make it fairly expensive overall. You won't have to clean up a gravel drive, but you still have to have dry gravel and a way to spread it at a decent speed.

One last thing. My favorite ice melter uses a torpedo shop heater fired with diesel. I don't know the BTU's, we got it at a farm auction and it was pretty beat up. It has three blowers and I'm guessing a minimum of 3 million BTU. It blows into a half pipe that is twelve feet long, the pipe has some baffles inside. When you turn that on you get a cloud of steam pouring out the back.:thumbsup:

Sorry about the lack of pics. My camera died and the older action photos are stored on a computer that is not hooked up right now. I didn't think I'd ever need any of the old archive photos. I can't promise, but when I get a new camera I'll try to get some pics of our ugly, but effective, machines.




Mr. HE

 

[hddnis]

Klamath Falls, Oregon heats the city sidewalks and maybe even the streets using volcanic geothermal. They were having a problem with bums moving in because the sidewalks are always warm and dry.:laughing:

I guess if you had basically free heat like that it makes sense to use it.




Mr. HE

 

[SensibleNick]

One last thing. My favorite ice melter uses a torpedo shop heater fired with diesel. I don't know the BTU's, we got it at a farm auction and it was pretty beat up. It has three blowers and I'm guessing a minimum of 3 million BTU. It blows into a half pipe that is twelve feet long, the pipe has some baffles inside. When you turn that on you get a cloud of steam pouring out the back.:thumbsup:

That - in my opinion - is worth buying a camera for... I wanna see it!!!

 

[SensibleNick]

Klamath Falls, Oregon heats the city sidewalks and maybe even the streets using volcanic geothermal. They were having a problem with bums moving in because the sidewalks are always warm and dry.:laughing:

I guess if you had basically free heat like that it makes sense to use it.

A city managed to provide free, nice, warm places for the homeless to sleep, and they considered it a problem?

I'd love to live in a place where Geothermal can heat water and house, but it's just too far to drill here