Quote:
Originally Posted by Bear Islander
Now I use an Ice Eater Thermostat that turns it on when the temperature is below freezing. It is on when ice is forming, and off when it is not.
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That's probably as good a solution as you'd find, for a dock on an island, where regular attendance to a timer would not be possible, or for any other location not regularly visited. But for a regularly attended mainland dock, that, too, will lead to running longer than really needed. Even in the most bitter cold spell, and we had some of that last winter, it doesn't take all that long for a light refreeze of the surface to be melted out by a running circulator. A thin layer of refreeze ice doesn't really pose a great threat to a dock; it's too fragile. Thus a dock in many locations is quite safe when subjected to periodic light refreezing. Running the circulator past the melt-out point is a waste of power, even when the air temperature is below freezing.
Over the last winter, I maintained a neighbor's circulator operation. At first, when it seemed that the ice was opening up too far along the shoreline, I checked the timer settings. The little 15-minute switches that controlled ON/OFF intervals had been set in reverse, so that the circulator ran most of the time, turning OFF only the few times around the clock where it should have been ON. I fixed that and kept watch. I found that in the most severe cold spells I had to go to four or five 1.5 hour ON intervals over 24 hours to keep the ice at bay. Later in the winter, just three one-hour ON intervals was sufficient. In early April I turned it off.
Clearly, location will affect how long over each 24-hour period the circulator ought to run. A location more exposed to wind and with greater exposure to lake ice movement (such as the Broads) may require more ON time, while locations facing smaller iced area may require less. At first, it's safer to err on the side of longer and more frequent ON times. Experience will let you find what you can safely do to save power while protecting the dock.
I need to say something else. Other than watching my neighbor's circulator last winter, in an area with the longest fetch being less than a mile and not really on the windward side of LI, I can't say I'm any expert at circulator operation. My own dock is seasonal, so I don't worry about ice destroying mine. So my comments on circulator operation are based on last winter and on what I've observed other neighbors' circulators doing, many of which seem to over-do it, needlessly. The opinions of others should be considered also.