Driveway Guides

Consumer Guides to Driveway Prices, Installation Costs & Driveway Repairs

Heated Driveway Cost, Options and Installation Price of a Heated Drive

Heated driveways and walkways are an excellent way to add additional value to your home while improving its safety and convenience. Anyone who has spent time living in colder climates, where snow falls heavy and often, will testify to the difficulties inherent in owning driveways: shoveling snow, breaking up ice and laying down salt on an almost daily basis, difficulties that are only compounded the larger the size of the driveway surface. Just imagine having your driveway automatically melt the snow and ice, never having to worry about your driveway again!

Heated driveways all but eliminate the necessity for such winter maintenance, saving you hours of backbreaking manual labor, or hundreds of dollars per winter in snow removal fees. Furthermore, each of these wintertime driveway maintenance tasks is potentially very damaging: in plowing or breaking up heavy ice, the driveway surface can be damaged, and salting (or using most other melting compounds) can erode or crack the surface. Having a heated driveway spares you these concerns, and helps to future-proof your driveway by saving you money that might otherwise be spent on these costly repairs.

Heated driveways most commonly use hot water or electricity as a heating element. The former is cheaper upon initial construction, but will carry a higher seasonal cost as your electric bill increases. Electric heated driveways use heated cables to spread heat evenly beneath the driveway surface, whereas hydronic systems use hot water pumped through plastic tubing. Of the two, electric systems tend to be more popular, but for extremely large driveways, hydronic systems are more efficient. Though the most popular and ideal time to install a heated driveway system is upon construction of the driveway itself, old driveways can be dug up to have heated systems fitted to them retroactively.

Heated driveways are commonly installed with sensors that detect precipitous drops in temperature and even light snowfall, meaning that, with or without your supervision, your driveway will be snow-free when you wake up: you will never again wake up to find yourself snowed in, or have to be late for important meetings because you have to spend thirty minutes digging your car out of heavy snow.

These driveways are most suitable for people in colder climates, especially where snowfall is common. They are particularly advantageous for the elderly or disabled, who are at a significant risk of injury from falling, and for whom ice represents a real danger. Heated driveways are never a bad idea, as the savings accrued over time from not having to pay for snow removal or spend time salting and shoveling your driveway offset the cost, as does the fact that heated driveways increase the value of the household as a whole.

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