this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
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Pipe heating cables are easy to find at hardware stores or online. You can use them to wrap poorly insulated pipes in the winter to avoid them freezing.
I'm guessing something like this would work for you and last a lot longer than a bulb anyway.
https://www.amazon.com/WRAP-Pipe-Heating-Cable-Built/dp/B0002YWMM8
Wont that use the same amout of electricity as a 60w light bulb, but with the added annoyance of it not just screwing into the place the light bulb was?
How is it any better than just using a light?
I am no electrician, but this looks to be applicable to longer sections of pipes. Instead of the heat being focused to just the areas reachable by visible light, this would allow for thawing around bends, longer distances, tighter / smaller spaces, etc.
It still uses power to generate heat, but that 60W will likely be way more efficiently applied to pipes. Bulbs will be quite lossy because heat goes through the air to reach nearby pipes (and any other nearby objects), whereas this is physical wires applied directly around said pipes.
Conduction vs Convection, yeah. Conduction is going to be way faster / more efficient.
Might even be able to put it on a variable switch and build some logic with a raspberry pi so you don't need all 60w.
To step back a bit, don't you consider it annoying that you need to heat pipes full of water and the best solution they could come up with 70 years ago was to add a lightbulb socket several feet away from the pipes?