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Back in the fall of 2017, I installed an unusual rooftop de-icing system
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I put it on Robert's place in the forest. And since then, people have been asking me how it's working
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So, this is the time of the year when you really need rooftop de-icing
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So, let's go take a look and see how it's performing. This aluminum edge that you see here is just the edge of the edge cutter system
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Further up, about five inches up, the aluminum extends. And encapsulated in this section is a self-regulating electric heating cable
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And it warms the aluminum, which transmits the heat up the roof
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and completely melts off all of the ice that would normally be here
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I mean, there still is some ice further up, but it's not causing any problems
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Normally, without some sort of an Eves heating system, there'd be a great big berm of ice over here
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and just completely encapsulating the fascia and adding a lot of weight and potential damage
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And also, potentially, at least on some roofs, some leaking. So, you can see it in action here
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And you can see how that heat is conducted up the roof and does its job
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Here you can see the heating cable going into that aluminum extrusion
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And this particular cable puts out a maximum of five watts per foot
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So, it's not a whole lot of heat. When it's running, you can feel a little bit of warmth
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but it's not like it makes your roof hot or anything like that. And it doesn't have to
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You want it to use as little electricity as possible. So, that's what it does
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This particular cable also is self-regulating in that it puts out more or less heat along its length, depending on its temperature
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It's quite sophisticated. And the bottom line is to use as little electricity as possible
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You can see how far up the extrusion goes here. We originally used construction adhesive
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to secure the aluminum extrusion under the existing shingles, but that didn't hold reliably
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So, we supplemented that with waterproof roofing screws driven down through the shingles, the extrusion, and into the underlying roof sheathing
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This system also has a GFCI, ground fault circuit interrupter, built in at the beginning of the run
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And that's just to give extra shock protection. Anything outside like this needs to be GFCI protected
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What I like about the edge cutter is that it's clean looking, it's effective
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and there aren't any rooftop cables on there. No matter what you use, there's going to be some ice and snow that slides off the roof sometimes
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And that's the kind of thing that just rips the cables right off. But with this, there's nothing to tear off, and it looks great
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It looks normal, too. Well, thanks for watching. I hope you found this tour useful
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Like the video if you liked it. Subscribe. Hit the notifications bell
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Check out my website. The address is in the description box. And come back next week, where I'm going to be working on these two broken, but soon-to-be-working-well-again machines
