Wednesday 4 February 2015

Prevent Downtime with Heat Tracing

By preparing for winter; processing plants, machinery and equipment means production can continue as normal through the season. Installing Cross Electrical heat tracing cables can avoid constant maintenance and improve machine efficiency and ultimately prevent downtime.

It is considered good practice to develop an action plan during cold snaps to assist in prioritising and managing problems. This could include anything from frozen pipes to the unavailability of staff during very bad weather conditions.

Investing in trace heating will mean that vulnerable parts of machinery and the plant itself stay operational during the cold weather by running an electrical current alongside pipes. These pipes are then coated in thermal protection to prevent heat escaping. This allows the hot water system to flow continually despite the weather.

Cross Electrical have a wide range of trace heating cables to suit a variety of frost protection applications. This also includes our own XSSTC, XHP, XSW and XEL heating cables that can be designed for many winterisation projects. Thermostatically controlled, the heating cables only ever energise when temperatures drop below a pre-configured figure, acting to prevent the disastrous consequences of winter.

The XHP family of fixed resistance, constant wattage heating cables is used for metal, plastic pipes and vessels. XHP heating cables can be designed for non-standard heating applications using any voltage from 6 to 415 volts. These cables provide fixed resistance; therefore circuit resistance can be tested periodically regardless of ambient or process temperatures and can be used on applications up to 280⁰C.

The XEL family of self-regulating, parallel circuit heating cables is used for frost protection of metal and plastic pipes and vessels. With the facility to cut on site to the required length, XEL heating cables provide a reliable heating solution to the problem of frozen pipework.


Cross Electrical can manufacture, design and install a complete trace heating system to solve any problems that future winters may cause and will ensure that your pipe work never freezes again.

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