Any experiences of heating troughs or pipes?

[Darkly_Dreaming_Dex]

Seriously pi$$ed that all my hard work digging pipes underground hasnt worked in the -12 we had this morning and i have NO water except if i drive home and fill water containers in my upstairs bathroom of my upstairs flat yes thats TWO flights of stairs to lug them up and down oh and my troughs are giant solid lumps of ice too

and breathe...

so i am sure at least one of you lot have heated taps and/or troughs etc- OH has wandered off with the Screwfix (toolporn ) catalogue muttering about electrical heat tape..so any suggestions/tips as to what does/doesn't work are very gratefully received

 

[perfect11s]

Yes you can get heating tape or wire to wrap round pipes then insulate on top however if you can get it to thaw out and leave it trickling helps to it stop it freezing just need to be carefull where the water is going as a sink waste will freeze,, then its a flood !!!

 

[Thistle]

We have trace heated the pipes in our loft as the house is exposed and they freeze. OH did it using a kit. If you have plastic pipes you need to lay foil tape along them first to make a connection. You need a power supply and if you use a thermostat then you don't have to remember to switch it on.

He also did the pipe ito the tap in the tackroom so I have one working tap on the yard.

I guess you could do the whole run to the troughs etc with it if you wanted to.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trace_heating

 

[Darkly_Dreaming_Dex]

^^ Thankyou

Perfect11- i had wondered about leaving a tap trickling but we are on a meter and its 116p per metre

Thistle- will drag OH away from catalogue and point him at your link