Avoid School Closures: Prepare Schools for the Winter Now

The summer holiday is a time for students and teachers to relax but if you are responsible for managing the school then it can actually be the busiest part of the year.

It is important to get the school completely prepared for when the new term begins and the whole academic year starts again. You might need to complete safety checks, test security systems, and complete jobs that cannot be completed during term time. Amongst other things, you might want to think about what heating and freeze protection systems you have in place.

Although the summer has only just begun, you should prepare your building for the winter months in advance to avoid the hassle of having to close your school due to safety, and parents becoming annoyed by the costs ensued from childcare.

At Cross Electrical we specialise in trace heating systems which are designed to prevent pipes from becoming frozen during the winter by reducing the amount of heat that they lose via their surface. Electrical trace heating is a method of raising the temperatures of pipes in a freezing climate so that water inside them does not freeze.

It is a safe and maintenance-free system; once it has been put in place you no longer need to worry about pipes freezing during the winter.

In addition to preventing pipes from freezing, trace heating can also be used to maintain a constant temperature in hot water systems. It is particularly useful for containing substances that would otherwise solidify in ambient temperatures.

A thermostat is usually used to boost heat if a substance within a pipe falls below or rises above certain temperatures, these temperatures are referred to as the “setpoints”.

Heat tracing cables can be situated on the roof of a building or in the gutters during the winter to melt any ice that builds up there. When tracing cables are put into gutters it does not mean that no ice occurs in the gutter at all. Instead the aim is to provide a path for melted water to fall from the roof and down the piping.

Combining trace heating with the right thermal insulation creates a balance whereby the heat output from the trace heating matches the heat loss from the pipe so that a perfect, consistent temperature is maintained.

This type of piping is used in many industrial applications such as oil refineries or food factories where a certain material solidifies below 50◦C for example, which is much hotter than the surrounding air. The pipeline must have additional external heating to prevent the pipe and what it is carrying from cooling down – which is where trace heating comes in.

Essentially trace heating is a cost-efficient, reliable method of preventing ice from harming a building. If you would like to find out more about the trace heating systems and other methods of protecting your building from extreme weather condition, contact us on 01159 375 121 or make an enquiry via our website.