Gutter Heaters To Prevent Ice Dams

By Paul Woodward

New York, NY (CNN) - I had to spend a bit of time with one of them. It was an unusual situation. I was on my way to one of the sites of the catastrophic December floods in the Midwest when the water picked up. It was going to be cold - not exactly, but definitely, not warm - and the forecast had called for subzero temperatures. We were in the middle of nowhere, in a cabin on a mudflat along the Salina River in Central Kentucky, when I suddenly needed hot water. Luckily, I thought, the temperature was rising fast - and I spotted the row of four-by-fours at the rear of the stovepipe.

Inside the kitchen was a very basic design. The stove was a square box with a chimney pointing up, a cooking grate running all the way around the side, and a lid at the front - that is, unless you stepped in a gap in the floor at the bottom of the chimney to put it on. There was only one chimney on the box; it was steel pipe with at-least 12 inches of clearance between its circumference and the outside. Now, the space between the fireplace and the floor is important to be able to hold water while you cook so your stovetop gets a quick draining but also doesn’t clog the chimney. The only way to do that is up the chimney itself, which can get messy when you have to wait a few minutes for the water to rise enough for the stove itself to empty.

So a completely enclosed set up with only one piece of wood is an ideal place for a gutter heater. It is very simple - you stand it on its two end, take the grate out and connect it to your stove, then carefully remove the lid to remove as much as possible - roughly about two-thirds of the chimney - before running the water. As the water flows it will heat up in a straight line to a higher temperature, quickly enough so no ice would form.

As for the water, I guess it would be pretty cold. What it does for the cooking process, however, is actually essential for what I was trying to accomplish.