When it comes to protecting your building against winter weather, it’s important to work with tools that simplify your project while helping you stay on budget.

Let’s look at some helpful design tools from nVent RAYCHEM that can help with winterization at your building this year.

Prevent Ice Dams and Icicles

We’ve already covered the dangers of ice dams and icicles on a building. This side effect of winter weather can be extremely dangerous, and costly should they cause any damage. To make sure you’re not affected this year, it’s important to inspect:

• Roof eaves, valleys and gutters for damage which is a sign of ice dam formation
• Roof water damage areas caused by water ponding behind ice dams
• Locations where ice dams and hazardous icicles can slide off the roof or tumble down to the ground below where children play, or people walk

You can also design a comprehensive roof and gutter deicing system that will protect your roof during winter.

Our Roof and Gutter De-Icing Calculator lets you enter the system design parameters for a roof and gutter de-icing project and instantly get a bill of materials with the appropriate heating cable, connection kits and accessories, which can be used to request a quote. You can also manually select preferences, which means your design will always be customizable.

Prevent Frozen Pipes

Frozen pipes can be a headache for any home or business, but heat tracing can be an excellent solution to a yearly problem.

To make sure you are ready to keep your pipes functional this winter, make sure you inspect:

• Exposed water and drain lines that could freeze up, including outdoor piping, water pipes in unheated basements, attics lines, and parking garages
• Exposed water lines around HVAC equipment on commercial buildings

TraceCalc Pro for Buildings is easy-to-use design software that lets you enter parameters for a pipe trace project and instantly get a bill of materials with the appropriate heating cable, connection kits and accessories.

The tool can be used for many applications, including:

• General piping
• Sprinkler systems
• Greasy waste lines
• Fuel lines
• And more

The system works with multiple circuits and pipe segments with different design parameters on a single circuit. Projects can be saved for future use, and the data provided can be used to get a complete quote from the nVent RAYCHEM team.

Prevent Surface Snow and Ice Hazards

Slips and falls are an unfortunate side effect of winter weather, but they can be avoided. Make sure you are looking around your building for:

• Walkways, stairs, parking areas and ADA ramps that experience high people traffic and have had snow and ice accumulation safety issues
• Walking traffic patterns that are “slip and fall” hazards, like pathways from apartment entrances to dumpsters
• Sloped ramps (parking lot ramps, warehouse dock ramps, etc.) and sloped driveways that could create vehicle “sliding” damage

SnoCalc is an easy-to-use online design tool that allows users to enter parameters for a surface snow-melting project and instantly get a bill of materials with the appropriate heating cable, connection kits and accessories. With this tool, you can design a complete system with nVent RAYCHEM and PYROTENAX products.

The user simply describes their design and selects the right technology. From there, the appropriate heating cables, connection kits and accessories will be selected. This is all available for download and can be saved for future projects.

Designing complete solutions to keep your building safe this winter doesn’t have to be a hard task. With the online tools available, you can be on your way to a heat tracing solution that will keep your structure ice-free for years to come.