Heat Tape for Gutter Pipe?

[Shuchong]

Does anyone know of a good brand of heat tape, designed for water submersion (that is, being inside a gutter or pipe)? 

Instead of draining to the ground, my gutters drain into 3" PVC pipes that lead underground and direct the water a good 20-50 feet away from my house.  This works great except in spring when water freezes in the pipes.  For the most part, I can solve this problem by using plastic drain spout extenders and having them drain aboveground.  But there is one corner of the house where that won't work (the house is backed up to a hill).  I have juryrigged that downspout to drain into a trashcan, but I am getting kind of sick of bailing it out.  (I live in a snowly climate, and the spring roofmelt is many galleons a day). 

The prior owners ran heat tape through the underground pipes.  But it's about 30 years old and suffers from being a) not good/powerful enough and b) expensive to run.  Looking to replace it with something else. 

[uniwelder]

I would think that as long as you had a decent slope on the pipes with no dips, that there wouldn't be ice accumulation inside them.  How deep are they buried?  Would it be reasonable to dig them back up and reset the slope on them?

[nereo]

This is why it’s not recommended to have down spouts connect directly to underground drain pipe in cold climates. Instead of heat tape, I’d recommend installing a catch basin and terminating the drain pipe a few inches above the ground.

[Shuchong]

I would think that as long as you had a decent slope on the pipes with no dips, that there wouldn't be ice accumulation inside them.  How deep are they buried?  Would it be reasonable to dig them back up and reset the slope on them?

It's a shallow burial.  I could dig it up and reset, or even put in a french drain, I suppose.  I'm naturally looking for the simplest solution, but I know that's not always the best.  Part of the problem is that I have about a month of freeze/thaw where the temperature drops at night and things heat up in the day, but this area is shaded while the roof is in the sun, so I get water flowing into the gutters while the ground is still frozen. 

[Shuchong]

This is why it’s not recommended to have down spouts connect directly to underground drain pipe in cold climates. Instead of heat tape, I’d recommend installing a catch basin and terminating the drain pipe a few inches above the ground.

I've never heard of a catch basin before, but after a few minutes of Googling, this might work nicely!

[Paper Chaser]

If you're reconfiguring things anyway, it might also be worth it to install a PVC Cleanout elbow so that you can run a pipe snake or something through if you have to.

[lthenderson]

Instead of draining to the ground, my gutters drain into 3" PVC pipes that lead underground and direct the water a good 20-50 feet away from my house.  This works great except in spring when water freezes in the pipes.  For the most part, I can solve this problem by using plastic drain spout extenders and having them drain aboveground.  But there is one corner of the house where that won't work (the house is backed up to a hill).  I have juryrigged that downspout to drain into a trashcan, but I am getting kind of sick of bailing it out.  (I live in a snowly climate, and the spring roofmelt is many galleons a day). 

Is the ice forming in the buried pvc pipe or the downspout? I have the exact same setup where all four of my downspouts in the corner of my house are connected to buried pvc pipe that takes it about 40 yards to a ravine. I live in the Midwest where we get snow and freezing. I have never had an ice blockage in my downspouts or my buried pvc pipe. I'm guessing it is happening in your pipe which means it wasn't buried under frost line as it should have been. My pvc piping is three feet deep and below frost line. Applying heat tape is just creating a bandaid solution.

Is it happening right at the boot interface between the downspout and the pvc? What color is the boot? Black boots absorb more solar radiation and would help prevent freezing than a white boot might.

[Shuchong]

If you're reconfiguring things anyway, it might also be worth it to install a PVC Cleanout elbow so that you can run a pipe snake or something through if you have to.

I can snake it no problem in summer (and did last summer).  It's a straight shot other than a shallow elbow into the ground.  But at this point I would need a snake with a blowtorch (a dragon?) to get through it.

[Shuchong]

Instead of draining to the ground, my gutters drain into 3" PVC pipes that lead underground and direct the water a good 20-50 feet away from my house.  This works great except in spring when water freezes in the pipes.  For the most part, I can solve this problem by using plastic drain spout extenders and having them drain aboveground.  But there is one corner of the house where that won't work (the house is backed up to a hill).  I have juryrigged that downspout to drain into a trashcan, but I am getting kind of sick of bailing it out.  (I live in a snowly climate, and the spring roofmelt is many galleons a day). 

Is the ice forming in the buried pvc pipe or the downspout? I have the exact same setup where all four of my downspouts in the corner of my house are connected to buried pvc pipe that takes it about 40 yards to a ravine. I live in the Midwest where we get snow and freezing. I have never had an ice blockage in my downspouts or my buried pvc pipe. I'm guessing it is happening in your pipe which means it wasn't buried under frost line as it should have been. My pvc piping is three feet deep and below frost line. Applying heat tape is just creating a bandaid solution.

Is it happening right at the boot interface between the downspout and the pvc? What color is the boot? Black boots absorb more solar radiation and would help prevent freezing than a white boot might.

Good point re: the frost line.  It is freezing in the pipe, not the gutter.  And yes, it is way too shallow to be below the frost line.  It's probably six inches at the gutter end and 10 at the outlet.  No water has drained into the pipe for weeks now, and it is still frozen.  (Temps have been about 40 in the day, 20 at night).  I'm thinking the best solution might be a trench drain/french drain type situation, maybe something like a half pipe, filled with rock, so that at least I can thaw it more easily, and so the sun actually hits it a bit more.  The pipe is black, but the intake doesn't get much sun (it's on the northeast corner of the house, with a hill blocking the eastern sun). 

[franklin4]

This MN based company sells heat tape. I bought a cord 5 years ago for a water pipe and it's still working.

https://radiantsolutionscompany.com/