Unexpected Storm Drops 5" of Snow - Lets Make a Heated Driveway Time Lapse & Melt It Away! - 2-27-23
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- Опубликовано: 6 июн 2024
- On Monday February 27th, 2023 at about 3PM it started snowing heavily in the Buffalo area. I was at work and didn't even notice until I looked out the window at 4 PM and noticed everything already covered with 2"+. The evening commute home was a disaster, and by the time I got home the driveway had already accumulated 4-5".
I added footage from the security cameras so you can watch how quickly it accumulates, and I turned on the driveway on (and started the time-lapse) around 6:20 PM.
By 2:20 AM on 2-24-23, the driveway was clear and mostly dry so I deactivated the system. By morning, it was completely dry & clear, no ice.
Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
01:38 - Camera Footage
02:44 - Time Lapse Camera 1
02:58 - Time Lapse Camera 2
03:38 - Time Lapse Camera 3
04:59 - Stats & Outro
If you’re new to my channel and want to follow this project from the beginning (in order, regardless of upload date), please visit my Heated Driveway / Snowmelt playlist which can be found here: • Heated Driveway / Snow...
The playlist will have all of my videos in the correct order form start to present, regardless of the date I uploaded them. It starts with how I designed the PEX and Snowmelt Loop Layout, shows the process of installing the actual heated concrete slab, demonstrates how I did the math to calculate the boiler and pump sizes, installation of all of the components, and ends with lots of time-lapse of the system melting snow. It also includes snowmelt system startup and shutdown videos, as well as walkthroughs of the mechanical room, continuous circulation design and electrical system.
Below are links to several of the products, tools, video equipment and channels that I used to build the system. You can find more comprehensive lists at: Http://www.cdecker.com Please note that as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Products I used to build the system:
-Takagi T-H3-DV-N Tankless Water Heaters (2): amzn.to/3Fe6nbu
-3" Diversitech Concentric Vent Kits (2): amzn.to/32ja8h2
-Taco 0013-SF3 Circulator Pump Stainless Steel (3): amzn.to/3yVwtOh
-Taco 006-ST4 Recirc Pump (2): amzn.to/3eyy432
-Taco VT2218 Variable Speed ECM Pump (2): amzn.to/3sKVL0f
-100 Plate Flat Plate Heat Exchanger 400,000 BTU's: amzn.to/3pbMlsE
-Enbrighten Z-Wave Plus Smart Light Switch with SimpleWire (2): amzn.to/3sj3p1G
-1 1/2" Epoxy Coated Copper Tube Split Ring Extension Hangers (10): amzn.to/3EalIZm
-1" Epoxy Coated Copper Tube Split Ring Extension Hangers (20): amzn.to/33Kkd7C
-1" Swing Check Valves (5): amzn.to/3pBg8Lo
-10"x8" ABS Plastic Dustproof Waterproof IP65 Junction Box: amzn.to/3FCfbrX
-Waterproof Dustproof IP67 Junction Box Gray 6.9 x 4.9 x 3.9 inch: amzn.to/3pynDmn
-Wayne PC4 1/2 HP Cast Iron Pump for Filling: amzn.to/32L4Xqk
-Ranco ETC-111000 Digital Temperature Controls (5): amzn.to/3HknvNj
-Rubber Washing Machine Fill Hoses, 3/4 inch FHT, 8 Ft: amzn.to/3mGUzXZ
Tools I used to build the system:
-12" Adjustable Wrenches (2): amzn.to/3HhAzTF
-Rectorseal No. 5 Pipe Thread Sealant: amzn.to/3HiR0Px
-Blue Monster 1/2" Blue Teflon Tape: amzn.to/3JnhqBF
-High Intensity Trigger Start Mapp Gas Torch Head: amzn.to/3z6l0LE
-14.1 oz Bernzomatic Pre-Filled MAP-Pro Gas Torch Style Cylinders (2): amzn.to/3EEA1FM
-Oatey 29025 Safe-Flo Wire Solder, 1 Lb Bulk, Solid, Gray, Silver: amzn.to/3z6PWLI
-9'' x 12'' Welding Pad Protector, Carbon Felt Torch Soldering Heat Shield, High Temp Flame--Resistant Fabric, Plumbers Pad: amzn.to/3Hk9y22
What I use to record my videos and time lapse videos:
-GoPro Hero 8: amzn.to/3qu6ppC
-Joby JB01507 GorillaPod 3K Kit : amzn.to/3pClzde
-SanDisk 256GB Extreme microSDXC Memory Card: amzn.to/3zdZJjd
I will be uploading more videos of the system in action each winter, as well as several videos of the installation process, including soldering, filling with glycol, venting, etc. If there is something in particular you would like to see, please ask, and I will make a video of it.
If you enjoy my content, please consider subscribing to my channel by clicking the following link: / @deckerchristopherj
Music Credit:
❰Chillstep❱ Sappheiros & Almaa - Dreams
/ sappheirosmusic
Link - • ❰Chillstep❱ Sappheiros...
#heateddriveway #snowmelt #buffalo #timelapse 
Хобби
![Answering the Top 5 Most Frequently Asked Questions About my Buffalo NY Heated Driveway - [12-3-22]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/zvOQSQiaqTw/mqdefault.jpg)
![Answering the Top 5 Most Frequently Asked Questions About my Buffalo NY Heated Driveway - [12-3-22]](/img/tr.png)
Positively the best way to deal with that back breaking heavy wet snow!
I like it how you can see the lines that hot pipes make in the snow you can clearly see how they are laid under the driveway. Really cool! 👍🏽
Enjoying the 3 angles a bunch! Thanks for these!
Thanks for the feedback, Drowe! I'm glad you liked them! They are a bit more difficult to grab, as the Wyze cameras don't make it easy to pull the large timelapse videos down remotely, so I need to physically remove the SD Cards and copy them off, but I thought they added some cool perspectives. I'm going to keep adding them in future videos, and from the recommendation of another subscriber, as some point I will add one really close to the slab for a close up shot. Thanks for watching, I appreciate it!
It’s really quite satisfying to watch the snow slowly melting away without lifting a shovel. We got about 6” up north of Toronto during Friday night March 3/23. The snow was really heavy too. I would have loved to have a system like that in place.
Thanks for watching Rick! I appreciate having you as a viewer!
Wow, so those operating costs aren’t nearly as bad as I thought. And I’m a contractor myself so I could install this myself. And one thing I also considered was hooking up a solar unit in powering an electric water heater by solar
What blows my mind is people in the snow belt don't do this more often. .05 cent a kwh is so cheap
Chris great video 🥶👍
Thanks man, appreciate that!
Living in New England, I have been considering this option. Great video!
We had an event in Michigan Friday ( March 3rd ), while we seen it coming temps were suppose to be 6 degrees warmer which would put us at 39 degrees. Instead they stayed at 33,34 so we got hit with 6-10" inches of very wet, very heavy snow.
I love seeing your system work, so much easier than the shovel system!
Take care.
Thanks for the compliments Johnny! It sounds like what happened there is exactly what happened here! They were way off on the predictions on this one! Thanks for taking the time to comment and watch, I really appreciate it!
Remap Radio sent me. Awesome work!
Loved the additional camera angles, Chris! I'll bet you wish you had the ability to turn on the system while you were at work. At least there wasn't any ice connected with this storm. What a nightmare the commute home would have been then.
Thank you for another great video.
See you in the next one!
Thanks Susan! I actually do have the ability to turn the system on remotely from my phone, so I could have done it from work. For this storm I hesitated because the temperatures were expected to be so warm I didn't think it would even accumulate. By the time I got home there was already 4-5" and I figured even if it did melt it would take a while so I might as well melt it for the content. The commute home was not fun, even for Buffalo where we are pretty familiar with these conditions. Thanks for being a viewer, subscriber, and for taking the time to watch and comment on my videos, I really appreciate it!
I have to admit..each time I hear snow storm am always curious how your system is handling it..😀😀
Firstly, Christopher, thanks for sharing. This is very interesting and informative. Last month, I relocated from Atlanta to Lewiston (NY). I've already learned firsthand what I was told before making this home purchase ---Lewiston has a micro-climate. In these past two storms, I had 1 inch and 7 inches of the white stuff, respectively. But I'm constantly thinking g how to not pay the plow guy and have zero interest in shoveling. Will be watching your videos from the beginning. 🤙
Glad I live where it only snows once or twice every decade or so. I’m over 50 and I’ve never seen a snow shovel in person, and hope that I never do. I went to Edmonton a few times on business trips during the summertime and it felt like December weather in July to me. 😎🙊🙉🙈
Great set up Chris. I think i stumbled across the car wash guy on a forum that used those takagi UNITS and did the condensate trap. I am building a small barndominium and doing radiant heat in slab and small apartment and ran across you while looking into the snowmelt. I think i can just scale up a system like you have to add a 3rd takagi heater and a couple more zones. I really like the continuous circulation concept you have keeping everything so simplified to run compared to most systiems. Which belimo valves are you using (looks like 2 differnt models?) My cousin used to be a news anchor in buffalo but is back in mn now. Thanks for all the info.
Hi Warren! Yup, the guy you're referring to from the forums is a good friend of mine. He gave me a lot of pointers during my design. We still chat regularly, great guy. You can see a short video of his setup here: ruclips.net/video/BDunJiazJq0/видео.html Radiant heat is the BEST! It is by far the most comfortable. I was heating the garage for years with hanging Reznor unit heaters until I finally fired up the Radiant, and the difference is night and day. Even at 62ºF the garage feels warmer than it ever did with the unit heaters. Also, when we pull the cars in and out, as soon as the door closes it's instantly warm again. With the unit heaters all of the hot air would go out and it would be cold until they caught back up. I'm assuming you've watched my video on the continuous circulation? If you have any specific questions, just ask. So for the Belimo valves, the snowmelt zone is bigger because its 1 1/4" vs 1" for the radiant zones. The part number for the larger body is B331 and the actuator is AFRBUP. The smaller bodies are B323 and the actuators are LF120. I ordered them "fail-closed" so when no power is applied they are bypassing. When powered, they "open" and send the glycol back through the Heat Exchanger. You could do 3 units if you really need that many BTU's. They can be easy-linked together but when your activating them using pumps like I am it really doesn't matter. They both see the same flow from the pump all of the time, so they both fire all of the time, not like normal domestic hot water usage where the flow varies based on use, fixtures, etc. What was your cousins name? Hopefully that answers your questions, if not, just ask! Thanks for watching!
@@DeckerChristopherJ yes radiant is the best. Have had it in some farm shops. I have helped a plumber (my brother) install some pex years ago for a subfloor application. Im building a 40x64 post frame shop with about 1100 ft of loft living space. I have a 1600 ft driveway pad and about another 1600 ft of other surrounding pads to snowmelt. I figured i would do the shop slab as 1 zone at 50-55, living space subfloor at 68-70, and then 3 different snowmelt of 1600, 825, and 850 areas. I dont need to do all 3 at the same time. We dont get that much snow here compared many parts of SD but the wind blows and drifts and we have temp fluctuations but not always enough to completely melt away and it makes ice. I plan to have a forced air unit for air conditioning and shoulder season supplemental heat. I ran the snowmelt calcs but for a colder and windier day and my numbers for 1600 ft were like 3x of yours. In reality I think your numbers better reflect reality of when actually using the system. And if it takes a few days to melt through, so be it, I just want to get rid of the ice situations. I still need to more accurately calculate my heat loads for the shop and loft, so im just guessing at the moment that 3 unit could handle the domestic water for 1-2 people, primary heat, and on demand half of my snowmelt if not all of it. Waitin and hoping to hire a hvac company to do a manual j and size hvac ducts and see what they come up with for numbers and a system. Im guessing their system is going to be much more complex and
$$$$. Im still researching specifics and getting educated at this point and hope to pour main slab in may.
Lou Raguse. He just released a true crime book "vanished in vermillion"
I loved the data on the possible cost of operation at the end. Is there another video on the cost of the installation?
Thanks for the compliments! This video talks about costs: Answering the Top 5 Most Frequently Asked Questions About my Buffalo NY Heated Driveway - [12-3-22]
ruclips.net/video/zvOQSQiaqTw/видео.html and this video: ruclips.net/video/VotJEQigTkw/видео.html talks about how I calculate the cost to operate. I will be doing a more recent version of that video soon.
Just had a blizzard in southern California and had 6 feet fall in 48 hours, really wish I had this haha
I’ve been following that on the news! I think some areas there have gotten more snow that is this season! Here was our blizzard: ruclips.net/video/9G-uiGcD5UQ/видео.html Thanks for watching!!
Nice! Can I get a cooled one for my Texas driveway?
Do you have a pool? You could easily run it in reverse to pull the Texas heat off the driveway for your hot water or pool 😀. I tried it a while back but it wasn't hot enough for me: ruclips.net/video/q44LovimJsI/видео.html You might have better results in Texas!
What's the cost of having this installed at your place? You have a big driveway. Curious as to why you didn't turn it on sooner before all the accumulation. It's nice to see the heat hard at work.
Hey Jeff! So I DIY’d the entire system myself. I discuss cost in more detail in this video: ruclips.net/video/zvOQSQiaqTw/видео.html I would’ve turned it on remotely from work, but this particular storm came quickly and accumulated fast. With temps expected to be in to 40’s overnight I was also debating if it was going to melt off overnight. Once I got home and realized we had almost 5” and the temps were lower than expected, I realized it was not. I think that FAQ video above will open you up to my channel and you will enjoy my other melting, design and install videos 😊. Thanks for watching!
@@DeckerChristopherJ Hi Chris, thanks for the quick reply. I realized you made an entire series on your install after I posted this comment. You inspired me to do things I wouldn't normally do but this is too big of a jump to start. 😆 I've been living in the same home here in Toronto for over 35 years and never did I think of installing a heated driveway system. I always thought of it for the rich or for custom built homes. Are there any issues with your system other than the leaks from the plumbing? Do you ever need to top off the coolant fluid? Thanks!
when you calculate the cost do you subtract the regular cost of heating the house ?
I do. So for 30-60 days I clocked the gas meter at 7:45 AM and 7:45 PM and entered the data into a spreadsheet. I also recorded the outdoor temperature over the 12 hour period. This allowed me to calculate my "normal" usage based on day of the week and outside temperature, as those will both affect usage. We use more when it's colder obviously, and more on weekends when we're here vs weekdays where're gone (setback). For each video, I read the meter when I turn the system on, and again when I turn it off. I note the day of week the system was running, and the average outdoor temp over the events run time. With that info I have a pretty good idea what my typical 24-Hour usage is based on the usage data I collected, so I enter that, and my spreadsheet does the rest to calculate the cost to run for the event, subtracting out the "normal" cost that I would be paying anyways to heat the house, garage & hot water. Every month when I get my gas bill, I update the cost per CCF and other totals in the spreadsheet so that it is calculating it based on the most recent bill, and provides the most accurate estimate. It's not perfect, but I think I've got it calculated down to being pretty darn close to what it's really costing me. I will do another video showing the spreadsheet and calculations at the end of this winter. For now, you can kind of see how I do in in this video, but it's a couple of years old now. Gas prices have risen dramatically, and the spreadsheet has also come a long way since then, but it gives you a basic idea: ruclips.net/video/VotJEQigTkw/видео.html Hope that info helps! Thanks for watching!!
@@DeckerChristopherJ WOW ok that's a LOT more in depth than I would have imagined. It was just a curiosity question that poped in my head when watching the end of your video. I love watching the timelapse, it's just mesmerizing to me :)
Can you turn it on as soon as the snow begins to fall so it melts without accumulating at all?
Absolutely! Ideally I would turn it on about 2 hours before the snow begins so the slab was up to temp when the snow started. In that case unless the snow was significantly heavy, it would melt on impact and keep up just fine with no accumulation. There are also automated controls I can add to the system that would automatically turn it on when moisture / water is sensed and the outdoor temperature is less than 32ºF.
Nice way to spend a buck but you know as well as I do...5" of snow in Western New York is a snow squall.
I'd hate for it to be an open circuit in the heating element and would need to bust up a section of driveway to fix it
Hi David! So this system is hydronic, not electric. There are 14 individual loops that could easily be isolated in the rare case of a problem. You can learn more here: ruclips.net/video/zvOQSQiaqTw/видео.html Thanks for watching!
Until next year my friend…
Not quite yet Chris, I spoke to soon 😊. March has been pretty active so far! Lots more coming for the channel in the off season this year, hopefully some of you will stick around! Thanks for watching and commenting man, always appreciate it!
@@DeckerChristopherJ righteous! How far is Waterloo from you?
Where does the melted water go?
Hi Bill. Most of it evaporates. I discuss that in a bit more detail in this video if you're interested: ruclips.net/video/zvOQSQiaqTw/видео.html Thanks for watching!
$10.04 for avoiding bake breaking labor is well worth it. Initial investment to be questioned though...
looks like it works very well...however, the operating cost dont seem legit, way too low for 6 hr run time.
Hi Campus X! They’re legit. I have no reason to lie about it. It costs about $1.00 per hour to run once up to temperature. As you’ll see in my other videos, it’s actually cheaper and more efficient the longer it runs, as most of the cost is in the first 2 hours during startup. I will do another breakdown video after this winter showing exactly how I calculate the operating cost, like I did for February of 2021 here: ruclips.net/video/VotJEQigTkw/видео.html Believe it or not, it actually cost about 50% LESS to operate back then thanks to the increase in natural gas prices this winter. Just to give you an idea of how I get that cost, for 30-60 days I clocked the gas meter at 7:45 AM and 7:45 PM and entered the data into a spreadsheet. I also recorded the outdoor temperature over the same 12 hour period. This allowed me to calculate my "normal" usage based on day of the week and outside temperature, as those will both affect usage. We use more gas when it's colder obviously, and more on weekends when we're here vs weekdays we're gone (setback). For each video, I read the meter when I turn the system on, and again when I turn it off. I note the day of week the system was running, and the average outdoor temp over the events run time. With that info I have a pretty good idea what my typical 24-Hour usage is based on the usage data I collected, so I enter that data and my spreadsheet does the rest to calculate the cost to run for the event, subtracting out the "normal" cost that I would be paying anyways to heat the house, garage & hot water. Every month when I get my gas bill, I update the cost per CCF and other totals in the spreadsheet so that it is calculating cost based on the most recent bill, and provides the most accurate estimate. It's not perfect, but I think I've got it calculated down to being pretty darn close to what it's really costing me. Hopefully that helps clear any doubt! 😊 Thanks for watching!!