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Guess it's time for a tank heater
Big Sky Redneck
Member Posts: 19,752 ✭✭✭
A few days of single digit and nights below 0? made it impossible to keep up with the horses water tank. Usually going out with a hammer to break the ice and removing it works but not in this cold. 100 gallon tank froze solid overnight.
Comments
I've got a heater in the tank for my calves, but I did chores all week for a neighbor.
He has four tanks, from 50 gallon, to 1000 gallon, in four different pastures/pens.
I had to sledge hammer all of them, and use an old hay rake to clear the ice.
Much easier to do when they're full.
Don't know how much the heater costs to run, but it's well worth it.
How does the "tank heater" work? Is it a solar unit that had a batt. for overnight or,do U have to run power to the tank?
Most are 110 volt, plug in. There are some propane powered ones, never used one though.
Mine goes in the drain plug hole. There are also floating heaters, and sinking heaters, that you can put a wire cage on, if used in a poly tank.
I think I wouldda directed the Kero heater around the outside of the tank and just flipped the block out.
Did that for about an hour then flipped it and beat it with hammers, didn't work. Now I'm going to burn the ice out [:D]
Had a tank heater but it is missing, can't find it anywhere.
My wife just turned on our A/C about a half hour ago here in GA. I don't see how yous guys live like that.
My A/c has not yet been turned off this year.
Maybe I will get to turn it off before Christmas.....
Not sure how it would work below 0, though.
My wife just turned on our A/C about a half hour ago here in GA. I don't see how yous guys live like that.
Winter is my favorite time of the year. Brutal cold and snow.
Love it!
Can't stand the heat of summer. Sweating and bugs. Can't stand high humidity either.
Love working and hunting in the cold and snow.
You southern fellers don't know what yer missing!
quote:Originally posted by Smitty500mag
My wife just turned on our A/C about a half hour ago here in GA. I don't see how yous guys live like that.
Winter is my favorite time of the year. Brutal cold and snow.
Love it!
Can't stand the heat of summer. Sweating and bugs. Can't stand high humidity either.
Love working and hunting in the cold and snow.
You southern fellers don't know what yer missing!
I lived in the middle east for several years, temps over 130? and at times humidity so thick the buildings would sweat so bad the streets looked like it rained. Worked outside in that heat, drove trucks wearing body armor and no ac in that heat as well.
Lived in PA for a lot years, cold and snow with high humidity in the summer.
Live in MT now, worked as a heavy truck mechanic and drove a service truck, had to go start trucks in parking lots with temps around -40?. Went hunting this week in temps hovering around 0?. Been all over this country in all kinds of weather, cold, hot, humid and eveything inbetween. Sitting here in Ogden UT right now, heat wave with temps in the 20?s, truck shut off and no heat unless it's running, I'm going to bed.
Some of y'all are a bunch of pansies!! [:D][:D]
My wife just turned on our A/C about a half hour ago here in GA. I don't see how yous guys live like that.
Plus 1. You can have all that cold
Cold is bad for your looks. Just look how pretty us Southerners are. [:D] Well, maybe not the men but you got to admit there's no prettier girls on the planet than Southern girls.
Cold weather makes the women even more cute and cuddlier!
We run tank heaters in all our stock tanks.
Sledge hammering ice a few dozen times at oh-dark-thirty in the morning will cure a fella of not havin' one right quick!
Plus, considering the cows drink a couple hundred gallons a day, you only get more pissed off when you take the easy way out and just hammer a hole in the ice. This leaves you with a delightful shelf of 4" thick ice up a foot or so from the waterline to deal with next time.
I bet the cows love a nice warm drink,when it's FREEeEeeEEzing out...[^]
We have the same tanks and had the same problem. I would just flip the tank over and run the hose over the outside of the tank and the whole chunk would fall out in one piece. Yeah, have the heaters in the drain holes now, but they suck up the power.
COuld U rig up a timer to turn it off and on?
Or rig a thermostat?
quote:Originally posted by guns-n-painthorses
We have the same tanks and had the same problem. I would just flip the tank over and run the hose over the outside of the tank and the whole chunk would fall out in one piece. Yeah, have the heaters in the drain holes now, but they suck up the power.
COuld U rig up a timer to turn it off and on?
Or rig a thermostat?
They do have a thermo built in. They keep the water about 50 degrees. Problem is there is no insulation whatsoever on there tanks so they just shed the heat. I thought about having the local spray foam guy coat the outsides of the tank, but I know the horses will just eat it, or at least rip it all off. buzzards.