Invest in a heat tape timer to minimize energy use
Special report by Suzie Romig,
CLEER: Clean Energy Economy for the Region
Homeowners who have heat tape installed on their roofs or in gutters to help prevent winter ice dams often find that heat tape also warms up their electricity bills.
Typical heat tape burns electricity at six to nine kilowatts per foot per hour. So 100 feet of heat tape operating 24/7 can use from 430 to 650 kilowatt hours of electricity per month.
That translates to an added monthly cost of $35 to $52 to operate heat tape, says Eileen Wysocki, energy auditor for Holy Cross Energy. Some larger houses in the region are running 500 to 600 feet of heat tape.
That’s the reason Clean Energy Economy for the Region (CLEER) is including a rebate in the Garfield Clean Energy Challenge for Homes to encourage Garfield County homeowners to install plug-in or hard-wired heat tape timers.
The heat tape rebate is one of several rebates offered for energy efficiency upgrades. Rebates are also offered for insulation and air sealing, upgrades to high-efficiency furnaces, boilers, water heaters, air conditioning and evaporative coolers, and for an HVAC tune-up. The rebates are offered on a first-come, first-served basis through the nonprofit organization CLEER, using federal Recovery Act funds allocated to Garfield County.
The heat tape timer rebates are $20 for the do-it-yourself plug-in version, which some heat tape systems can accommodate, or $200 for a timer that an electrician installs in an existing hard-wired heat tape system.
Find the heat tape timer rebate form and program info on the Clean Energy Challenge for Homes page. Find contact information for local electricians in the One Stop Shop at left, under "Contractor Locator."
Using heat tape for maximum effectiveness and minimum energy
It may seem counter-intuitive, but the best time to run heat tape is during the day. Holy Cross Energy’s residential audit program recommends using a timer to run heat tape from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. whenever snow or ice is sitting on your roof.
When the sun is out and snow starts melting, the dripping water needs a path to drain off the roof. Heat tape can melt a channel in the underside of the snowpack on your roof and give water a route to drain out. And heat tape installed in gutters and downspouts allows water to drain away from the roof, rather than getting plugged up by a dam of ice.
Electrician Nathan Helfenbein of Basalt said heat tape is not effective enough to sufficiently melt ice during cold evenings and will just waste power all night long.
Mechanical engineer Mike Ogburn of CLEER said the goal is to run heat tape only enough to keep a channel cut in the snow or ice.
“This might be six hours a day, or might involve a temperature set point,” Ogburn said. “These control times and temperatures will vary from one building to another based on elevation, how the roof catches the sun, and how well the building is insulated.”
Watch out for ice dams
The experts advise homeowners and building managers to keep an eye on their roofs all winter for ice damming. If blocks of ice build up under the snow, that could indicate inadequate insulation, noted Robert Roper, an energy auditor and longtime electrician in El Jebel.
“As a certified auditor, we look at those ice dams and icicles hanging from the roofline as a possible indication of not enough insulation in the attic,” Roper said. “If you do the air sealing and insulation work to begin with, the need for heat tape on the roof is vastly reduced.”
Effective heat tape installation and operation
Helfenbein recommends that homes needing heat tape go with a hard-wired system that uses the more efficient voltage of 220. He said those systems should be connected to a GFI (ground fault interrupt) breaker and be self-regulating so that they burn hot where the tape is touching ice.
Once the roof is melted out, heat tape should be switched off. Every summer, Wysocki said she finds homeowners who are paying high electric bills because they forgot to turn off the heat tape. She recommends marking the calendar for mid-April or making a note to turn off heat tape at the breaker switch after the last big spring snow.
Conscientious homeowners can also install a heat tape system with a manual toggle switch so they can easily turn on the tape only when it’s needed, and switch it off later.
Some facility managers of commercial buildings report tying the heat tape system into the building’s automation controls. Nick Kertz, chief engineer at the Snowmass Club, said he sets controls so the heat tape only operates when the air temperature is above 32 degrees and the sun is out.