Ridecamp: [RC] water heaters/de-icers

Living near Buffalo, NY, the snow and ice capital of the free world (ok, it
only seems like it), I have some ideas about water heaters and de-icing.

I use a couple different methods.  One, I have a freestanding automatic bowl
waterer.  Nelson, I believe.  It has never frozen, even though it is in an
'alleyway' into a run in, where it is under a roof but exposed to a certain
amount of wind.  We did build a wooden box around it, about 3 inches bigger
around than the waterer, and insulated inside that box with standard
fiberglass insulation.

In my other run in, I have a heated 10 gal flat back bucket on the wall.  It
has worked great, and because the element is between two layers of plastic,
it can not be messed with and will not burn out if the bucket goes dry.  I
hung it on a wall post that had a space behind it so the cord could go up
the space and wouldn't become a toy for the wayward geldings. These buckets
would be great for stalls (no one lives in a stall here - I have eight with
auto waterers that have never been used!!).

In this large run in, since I have more horses than I used to, I added a
standard trough with a sinkable heating element.  The element came with a
little cage around it to keep it off the bottom and to keep the horses from
messing with it.  I am sure, should the trough go dry, or go too low, the
element would burn out and be an electrocution or fire risk.  I keep it
filled to the top twice a day.  To keep the bad boys from messing with the
cord on this unit, I ran the cord through a PVC pipe.  The pipe is just long
enough to go from element to plug.

Laura Hayes AERC#2741



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