Just bought a really cool circa 1961 house. The first (of 2) owners was a contractor who built the home for his wife. He added a lot of neat things. One of those neat things is a heated driveway and sidewalk and back patio. Unfortunately, out of all of those items, only 1/3 of the back patio and 1/4 of the driveway actually work.

There are little holes in almost every pad of cement on the property, and each of the holes houses some stubbed off wires. That's it.

My question is this: Can the heating system be repaired short of digging up the concrete?

Thanks for any help!

Snow melt system that old used resistance wire which after time and salt get broken wire in the cement. The new system used today use a different type of wire that holds up better in cement.

I am no saying it can't be repair as I am not there to see and check out the system, but I doubt it can be saved.

Have a qualified local electrical contractor check it to see if it is to late to save.

I thought about this over the weekend and thought I would expound on it a bit to help you understand and to help others that might think of installing something like it.

The old system that you have was made using Nichrome (Nye-chrome) resistive wire. This wire attached to voltage would get hot. Nichrome is still use in most electric heaters and even hair dryers. Its that glowing coil you see.

The problem with this system is there is no control other then any added thermostat. If the stat called for heat, it would turn on the electricity. Any portion that was not properly install could and would over heat and burn out and ruin the entire length of heater.

Also, as it heated and cooled, it would expand and contract. This could cause a mechanical failure.

The new system uses a conductive polymer that is set between two wires. These wires are usually 16 gauge copper or better depending on design. Pretty hard to break under normal designed use.

When voltage is applied to the wires, the conductive polymer heats up to its designed temperature. When cool, the less its resistance the more it will conduct and get hot. As it warms up the resistance goes up conducting less electricity. It will stay at the design temperature within any 1-inch area. This keeps it from over heating. Even if one spot fails, as long as those 2 copper wires stay in tack, the balance of the heat trace will continue to work normally.

This type of heat trace also is more flexible then the old style. This helps with the expansion and contraction of the concrete. This type of system is real good for side walk and drive ice melting system, roof ice melt systems and to keep pipes warm to keep them from freezing.

Your electrician should check the resistance of all the heat trace heaters in order to see if they are in good condition. I don’t recommend this for the DIYer.