DIYbanter - View Single Post - I need a little advice on running waterlines in an uninsulated crawlspace

wrote in message . ..
I tried to do research on the heat tape... If I'm not mistaken thats
the kind that uses electric to heat the pipes so they don't freeze.
My concern is how much electric is consumed during this process. The
websites I visited were obviously keeping this information from
consumers eye's. I would imagine its way up there... heating
anything using electric has always been expensive, i.e. hair dryers,
toasters, they all have high consumption...

No! A better example would be an electric blanket, not a hair dryer.
Heat tracing for the purposes of freeze protection will not use that
much electricity because it's only on when it's below freezing, and
even the it's only raising the temperature of the water in the pipe to
just above freezing. Now if your running a chemical plant and you are
using heat tracing to keep a pipe from getting clogged up and you are
heating a pipe up to 100 degrees or so then yes.