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Thawing frozen ground

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Gr8WhiteNorth

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Discussion starter · #1 ·
Hi All,
I’m trying to extend my season a bit here up North in Canada. I have a wall job to do that is 100ft long or so and the temps are going to drop below freezing at night.

I was looking at snow mats but I don’t think we can string together that many

I thought about running a 110v hot water tank with a pex loop on a pump, but I’m told that needs to be an engineered solution

anyone have another economical solution?
 
#3 ·
Young is probably right. Temperature of the soil at 3 inches deep has not cooled off by much.
My thought was to insulate the top 2 inches of soil to avoid freezing. Maybe cover with straw. Check the soil temperature.
Is there an online source for soil temperatures?
 
#5 ·
My first big wall job in 2013 was 65 feet long by 12 feet tall. Halfway thru we got a pretty abnormal cold spell for our parts and all of our gravel piles froze solid. Mud and gravel froze solid to our blocks. There was no economical solution so we had to let the project sit for two weeks until more normal temps returned and thawed things out.
If I ran into that situation again I'd rent or buy one of those forced air propane heaters. They put out a lot of BTUs and are pretty stingy with the propane. Maybe set up a little greenhouse tunnel over your base like people do with row covers to extend their growing season....
 
Discussion starter · #6 ·
The temps at our area have pretty wide swings. -10’c and -15’c overnight, then +1-3’c at peak heat of the day. It doesn’t get warm enough to thaw and the frost keeps building. By the middle of winter, we have 10’ frost depth.

we’ve done insulated tarps and that keeps the frost out decently until it gets too cold. I’m looking at a Ground Heater type setup. Perhaps a Wacker E1100, but wondering if there is a more economical solution
 
#8 ·
Gr8WhiteNorth said:
The temps at our area have pretty wide swings. -10’c and -15’c overnight, then +1-3’c at peak heat of the day. It doesn’t get warm enough to thaw and the frost keeps building. By the middle of winter, we have 10’ frost depth.

we’ve done insulated tarps and that keeps the frost out decently until it gets too cold. I’m looking at a Ground Heater type setup. Perhaps a Wacker E1100, but wondering if there is a more economical solution
Click to expand...
100’ maybe a little large, but there was a guy here that built a pool in the winter, they just rented a party tent, walled it off, and put a heater in it
 
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Gr8WhiteNorth
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