Thawing frozen ground

B

Bjoernar

New member
I dont know if alot of you live in areas where you have the problem where the ground frezes deep. Here in Norway it does and I have seen water/glycol being used circulating through a heater, pump and alot of hose on the ground with insulation over it, and back to the tank. Wach this video of a machine made for this purpose. Its also used for curing concrete in cold weather.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPndKFlhTRc

Can a similar system be built with a hot water pressure washer? What kind of pump can handle the heat? I am thinking low pressure and the higher gpm range?
 
This is basically what they are using, but more portable.

http://www.saskatoonboiler.com/boilers_gas.html

I have done something like this with a pressure washer, but had a 2200 liter tank to hold the water in the truck and cool it a bit. You need a pump with high temp seals or convert your pump to the high temp seals. Then you need to make a loop of sorts with the hose back to a holding tank and control the temp via a thermostat on the burner. Small burners are going to need the rpm's dropped on the pressure washer or the volume reduced through a valve between the pump and burner. Big burners can keep up, but the diesel bill will not be cheap, just warning you up front.

I have never had a pressure washer where the rpm's needed to be a certain level to keep the burner running. I can run at idle and still have the burner running no problems as I have built my pressure washers this way. Pressure washers do work, boilers work better. Another way is to take one of these http://frost-fighter.com/heaters/idf-500-idf-500hs-series/ with heated tarps and leave for a bunch of hours. This would be way easier to setup and run, and easily cheaper to transport to site and maintain.
 
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