On 9/24/2020 7:24 PM, rbowman wrote:
On 09/24/2020 04:24 PM, T Farmer wrote:
I have a 50 gal plastic barrel that I fill 2/3 with water, to use in
case of a water outage.Â* I would like to keep it from freezing this
winter (it's in my garage, which isn't insulated).Â* I bought a vat of
insulation to wrap around the barrel but someone told me that wouldn't
keep it from freezing.Â* So I just bought some heat tape (I think it's
called), but the salesperson told me it might melt the plastic because
it get pretty hot.Â* If I wrapped the insulation around the the barrel,
then wrapped the heat tape around the insulation would that work to
keep the water from freezing or would it create a fire hazard?


If the heat tape is below the water level in won't melt the plastic.
Whether it will keep the water from freezing is another story. Around
here you'd probably wind up with a large ice cube floating in a thin
layer of water.

Use a variable power control (light dimmer?) on the heat tape to limit
the temp would work too. Make sure it is rated for the rated power of
the tape.