Print

[birchbark]

Anyone got an idea on a way to heat up my horse water.  Right now I have an electric heater in it and it just kills me when I see my bill, especialy since my boiler is about 6 feet away from the water trough.  I acually have the electric heater plugged into a receptacle that is installed in the back of my boiler.  I don't want the water hot, I just want to keep the ice off of it, it would need to have some kind of temp control to keep it from warming up too much.  Any suggestions?

birchbark

[RSI]

If it is that close, just get a real small pump and run a pipe from the horse tank under the insulation on your boiler and back into the tank.

[Bondo]

Ayuh,....   Just run a line from the top of the boiler, down under the trough, 'n back to the bottom of the boiler...

It should thermo-siphon enough to keep things thawed out...

[muffin]

I am contemplating this too.  I was initiall thinking about a coil in the trough, but am worred because sometime the horses paw at the current electric coil.  If they break it that would be a disaster.  So I was thinking about this:

Pour a small pad for the trough to sit on ( a good idea anyway).
embed raidant floor heating style coil in the center of the pad, maybe even put a metal plate in the top to help conduction to the trough.
You could put an aquastat on it or just a real slow flow rate.  Should not take much to keep it from freezing.
Either come off your current loop or a seperate pump

[Scott7m]

No since tying it to the boiler and making it all that hard to do........

Just take a piece of 3/4 pex and a small pump like RSI said and wrap it aroun the boiler under the insulation. If it's really that close that is...  Just circulate the horse trough water through the pipe, it would be plenty to keep it from freezing