Heat tracing

Heat tracing design, installation and maintenance for Edmonton homes, commercial buildings and industrial plants: pipes, roofs and gutters, and process lines.

Winter is our design condition

A frozen pipe in January is not a nuisance, it is a flood waiting for the thaw. An ice dam over an entrance is a falling hazard. A process line that cools below its set point can shut a plant down. Heat tracing prevents all three by adding a controlled amount of heat exactly where it is needed.

Alberta Electrical designs, installs and maintains heat tracing for houses, commercial buildings, parkades and industrial sites around Edmonton. Our work falls into four areas:

• Pipe heat tracing for water lines, fire sprinkler piping, drains and anything else that runs through cold space.
• Roof and gutter de-icing to keep meltwater moving off the roof instead of building ice dams.
• Process heat tracing to hold industrial lines and vessels at a set temperature, including in hazardous locations.
• Heat trace maintenance so existing systems actually work when the first cold snap arrives.

How heat tracing works

A heating cable runs along the pipe, gutter or vessel and is covered by insulation where possible. A thermostat or controller switches it on only when it is needed, based on air temperature, pipe temperature, or moisture on the roof.

The most common cable type we install is self-regulating: its output drops as it warms, which saves energy and reduces the risk of overheating. Constant-wattage and mineral-insulated (MI) cables have their place in long runs and high-temperature or high-exposure process work.

Every system is a set of listed parts meant to work together: cable, power connection, splices, tees, end seals and controls. Using the correct kits and terminating them properly is where most of the reliability comes from.

Safety and code

Heat tracing is covered by the Canadian Electrical Code as adopted in Alberta, which sets out wiring methods and requires ground-fault protection for most heating cable installations. That protection is there because a damaged cable under insulation or in a wet gutter can leak current without tripping an ordinary breaker.

Installations generally need a permit. In Edmonton, the City issues electrical permits; elsewhere it depends on the municipality. We take care of the permit and inspection as part of the job.

Homes, commercial and industrial

The same principles apply at every scale, but the details change. A house might need cable on two eaves and a downspout, plus a water line to a detached garage. A commercial building usually has parkade piping, sprinkler lines, roof drains and an entrance canopy. An industrial site can have hundreds of circuits feeding process lines, instruments and tanks, often in hazardous locations.

We size the work to the site. For homes, that means a tidy, safe installation with simple controls. For larger buildings and plants, it means circuit schedules, labelled panels, monitored controllers and test records that make the system easy to maintain for years.

Planning and cost

We do not quote prices online, because every system is different. What drives cost: the length of cable, the number of valves and fittings, the type of cable needed, insulation work, how far the circuit is from the panel, whether the panel has space, and the controls you choose. Simple ambient thermostats cost less up front; smarter controllers cost more but save energy every winter.

The best time to plan heat tracing is late summer or early fall, before the first hard freeze and before contractors' schedules fill. If something has already frozen, call our 24/7 line: we can help get flow back and plan a permanent fix.

For facilities with many circuits, we can also set up regular inspections and keep the records in our online job management system, so you can see which circuits were tested and what was found.

Questions we hear