Brazed plate heat exchangers in Ice and Snow Melt Applications

If you are tired from hurting the back spading snow off driveway, dragging, falling, and slipping all sand and salt into your home. Then, the best method is the hydronic snow melting system for reducing the price of a long hard winter. However, such systems get more efficient and effective when brazed heat exchangers are used by them for supplying the system with hot glycol. These exchangers permit in lowering the boiler temperature as they do not need as high temperature differential as is required by the tube and shell heat exchanger, thus saving the amount of money and energy considerably. Brazed plate heat exchangers are not only effective than the tube and shell alternative, but also their compact size helps in the conditions where there is a space limitation and it is hard to access.

When an individual is selecting a brazed plate heat exchanger for ice and snow melting purposes, he or she should ensure that the contractor knows about your expectations. The most common mistake with such applications is to over or under-size the heat exchanger. This mostly occurs due to not sufficient information provided to the contractor from the customer and their expectations from the system. Hence, selecting the type of heat exchanger depends on two things first is the size of the heat exchanger and second is the load application. The expectations of the customer are as follows

- After a snow fall, the snow to melt in couple of hours

- A dry surface each time the system gets exposed to maximum load conditions

- Sometime reduction in performance in exchange for operating expense or lower capital investment.

Keeping all these expectations in mind the contractor will collect various data from density, snow fall rates, elevation, wind speed and temperatures to the area size to be melted, landscape and building characteristics influencing drifting formation of ice and snow. Lastly, the contractor can prevent over or under-sizing of heat exchangers for an ideal snow melting system.

There are few advantages of using brazed plate heat exchangers for ice and snow melt systems and they are:

- As there is a turbulent flow pattern via the exchangers, it is self-cleaning equipment inherently, having a high rate of heat transfer.

- Brazed plate heat exchangers for ensuring a long life of equipment are manufactured of highly corrosion resistant stainless steel and copper brazed in vacuum furnace to form a high-pressure resistant unit.

- Heat exchangers are kept in stock for immediate delivery.

In ice and snow melting system these brazed plate heat exchangers can be used by:

- Businesses in parking lots, outdoor malls, walkways, car washes and loading ramps for eliminating the snowplowing expenses, for preventing accidents of slip-and-fall, thus reducing the costs of liability insurance.

- Homeowners can get snow melt system installed in their steps, sidewalks, patios and driveways for eliminating the requirement for shoveling completely.

- Public facilities such as nursing homes or hospitals for improving safety and reducing the cost of ice and snow removal.