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Spent $150 on a heated driveway mat last winter
I got tired of shoveling my front walk in Edmonton every morning before work, so I bought a 3x5 heated mat from a local hardware store. It saved me maybe 20 minutes each day but the electric bill went up by $60 over three months. Has anyone else tried these things or found a better way to deal with ice without breaking the bank?
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kim_ramirez31mo ago
My neighbor got one of those big ones for his whole driveway last year and it was like watching money disappear. I went with a $40 bag of ice melt instead and honestly it worked fine most days, just had to remember to put it down the night before. But my electric bill was already high in Edmonton winters so I didn't want to add to it. The mat sounds nice though for those mornings when you're running late and the ice is thick.
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nathan1001mo ago
My buddy Mike out in Sherwood Park tried those heated mats a couple years ago. He got one for his front steps and a small path to his car, spent about $300 on it. First real cold snap hit and his hydro jumped up noticeably, we're talking maybe $40 extra that month just for those two small mats. He actually pulled them up by February and went back to the ice melt, said it wasn't worth the hassle of plugging them in and worrying about the cords getting buried in snow. Now he just keeps a bucket of that blue stuff by the door and spreads it when he gets home at night.
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Think it's funny how we'll spend hundreds of dollars to save a few minutes and then still end up doing the work anyway. This is one of those things where a cheap bag of salt and a little planning beats all that fancy tech.
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