Use electricity to melt snow and that electricity and heat contributes to climate change which makes snow worse and then you use more electricity and heat and then…
this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2023
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Dw it's just a shitpost. I wouldn't actually do something like this.
We can't even afford a snowblower. I shovel everything by hand.
That's 5KW for fairly small area (less than 12x12 ft). Your normal outlet can't support that (you need 240V because of so much power). I would argue that only well-offs can afford that.
Considering the thing itself is $1200, yeah. You could also buy a decent snowblower for that, or a lifetime supply of salt.
Except that in this example it really would solve the problem for good by increasing global temperatures until your driveway would never be cool enough to accumulate snow
And the stormwater disruption releasing warm water into streams and rivers early, sometimes triggering eggs/insects/other critters to come out before their food sources are ready and basically starving them out.
If you're looking for cheap and relatively easy not to mention kinda fun, look into propane torches for sealing driveways.
If it's below freezing, doesn't that just get you ice when the water freezes again?
You have to go slow enough for the water to drain away assuming your driveway was built correctly
I like this but I recommend getting a heat gun instead of a hair dryer. Much faster.
Now I wonder if you can get a leafblower that blows hot air out like a heat gun
Or you could use a flamethrower
- 2 x 130 sq ft. waterproof fabric: $300
- 1k ft. resistive wire (enough for one wire every 4 cm): $270 (approximate, I have no idea what gauge and resistivity you would need)
Honestly the amazon listing is not as bad of a deal as I was expecting. You could probably make it a lot cheaper but it would take forever and probably be significantly lower quality.