Heat tape not working!!

[wyorancher]

Originally Posted by Nwatkins176

I'm on my second winter as a full timer. This year was the first time I had a problem. I can't really diagnose your problem, so I will tell you what my problem was and maybe you can check that.

I always wrap the hose with tin foil then put the heat tape flat on the hose, not wrapped around it then covered in the foam. I duck tapped a lot. This year I had an extra heat tape so I used two one coming from the well side and another coming from the coach side. One was a 18 ft heat tape and the other was a 12 ft heat tape. The hose was 25ft. I also use a 18 foot heat tape on the camp well and wrap that in installation. I have all that hooked up to a Thermal Cube to only come on when 35 degrees. All three heat tapes plugged into the camp 110 GFI protected outlet. One of my heat tapes had a small cut in and kept popping the GFI plug and freezing my hose.

Fortunately my water hook up on my Diesel Pusher was close to the well, so I bought a 10 ft hose, and used my one good heat tape and had no problems. Again I did not wrap around the hose. Since the hose was short, it stayed off the ground so it didn't get buried by snow. We had a couple of nights down in negatives in Jersey and I had no problems.

Now I bought a new 5er and the water hook up is at the front. New Heat Tapes are hard to find toward the end of this cold winter, so I am struggling a bit.

Check out farm stores & Home Depot. May want to check out Walmarts aluminum tape. Works out better for me when I have coil up the hose. I do it about the same way as you do and no problems. The heat tape people say not to wrap or overlap. I think that was the other RVers problem.

[mikell]

Putting foil tape over the heat tape will melt the hose and heat tape. Been there. I cut the tape so it was as short as possible but not hanging in the air.

[Cari Z]

Thanks again everyone for your suggestions... thanks to your help I have figured out the problem. I brought the hose in and unwrapped everything. Turns out we seem to have put too much foil on the hose. It was black in places so I knew the tape was working. I think what happened is that the foil was too think and prevented the tape from heating the water.

After doing more research, including the heat tape manufacturer website, I decided to wrap the hose in foil again, only being sure to make it thin. The manufacturer said that it goes under the tape to distribute the heat. I also re-taped the heat tape in a straight line with the hose. I put the foam insulation back on and taped it all up and
IT WORKS!! What a relief...

I guess small things make a difference, huh? I wouldn't have figured it out without everyone's help, so thanks for all the replies!

[SteveR161]

Thanks for the update! Was hoping you found a solution. Warm here in Colorado front range this weekend!!