Electric Blankets for Ground Thaw

i am not a concrete contractor.

the temperature today was 10 below, we will have this cold snap for a few days and then we will be in the twenties. we have about a foot of frost.

we are trying to protect some scattered areas from frost so we can excavate for water line instalation. some areas are a trench width and 10 feet long others are 50 feet long.

we cannot use fire or anything like that. we are thinking about blankets so we could plug them into the invidual homes that water will serve.

we have about 50 homes to service.

rino1494 said:

A GC that we do some work for has them. They claim that it will take 12" of frost out of the ground.

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not to be a smart a** but that is the exact kind of answer i wasn't looking for!!!

when you explained the ground loop heaters and how long it takes, now that's the answer i was looking for. it involved a depth, a time, and a good or bad review.

thanks for giving me some info though.

we own a ground loop heater. i think we have 1000 or so feet of hose. this only works for one area, although it does work quite well and we have been able to thaw several feet of ground.

however, we have 50 scattered locations to thaw, so i am looking for something a bit more self contained.

it looks like the only manufacturer might be Powerblanket. has anyone used these?