Heat Not Transferring To Tubs Please Help!
I just recently put a 10 space rack together using a plastic shelving unit from Lowes and for some reason the heat is not transferring well to inside of the tubs at all. I will get 90+ degree readings on the heat tape itself, but some of the tubs will be reading low to mid 70’s inside. I just taped the heat tape (with metal tape) directly to the plastic shelves without any panel board or anything under it. The shelves are “perforated”, not solid, etc. Could that be the problem?
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Heat Not Transferring To Tubs Please Help!
The hot spot inside the tub is reading low/mid 70s or the ambient is? What’s your thermostat set at? Probe placed between bottom of tub and the heat tape? What’s the temp in the room? I agree probably a lot of heat escaping due to the design of those shelves
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Re: Heat Not Transferring To Tubs Please Help!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jmcrook
The hot spot inside the tub is reading low/mid 70s or the ambient is? What’s your thermostat set at? Probe placed between bottom of tub and the heat tape? What’s the temp in the room? I agree probably a lot of heat escaping due to the design of those shelves
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The hot spot (surface) temperature is what i’m referring to. At the moment, my thermostat is set on 91 degrees and it says the probe temperature is 91 degrees. The probe is taped on top of the heat tape of the middle shelf between the heat tape and the tub as always. The room temperature is 75 degrees. The hot spot inside some of the tubs on certain shelves may read as high as 85 degrees, while tubs on other shelves may read only 73 degrees. Yet, the heat tape itself may read as high as 93 degrees. I don’t get it...
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Heat Not Transferring To Tubs Please Help!
Warmer hot spots in tubs higher in the rack and cooler towards the bottom? If so that’s normal temperature stratification as heat rises. Is this one continuous strip of heat tape or multiple strips/pads connected to one thermostat?
Depending on the design of the tub floors you may need to adjust up a bit to get the inside temp desired. I’d bet a board across the bottoms of those shelves would go a long way too.
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Re: Heat Not Transferring To Tubs Please Help!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jmcrook
Warmer hot spots in tubs higher in the rack and cooler towards the bottom? If so that’s normal temperature stratification as heat rises.
Depending on the design of the tub floors you may need to adjust up a bit to get the inside temp desired. I’d bet a board across the bottoms of those shelves would go a long way too.
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Strangely, the bottom shelves AND the very top shelf seem to be the coldest. But, yeah... Since heat rises and the heat tape itself is reading as high as 93 degrees, it’s really hard to believe that isn’t even heating up a shoebox tub to higher than 73 degrees...
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Re: Heat Not Transferring To Tubs Please Help!
That is strange. I’d maybe bump the room temp up a bit and check the conditions of your heat tape(s)?
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Re: Heat Not Transferring To Tubs Please Help!
Sooo... As a temporary fix, I put an empty tub on the very top rack and ran the probe into the tub and taped it to the inside bottom of the tub. The temperatures are much more stable now, but I’m going to have some thin sheets of aluminum sheet metal cut out and remove the heat tape (Aaargh!) then secure the sheet metal to the shelves and tape the heat tape to that. It is my belief that since the shelves are “perforated”, so to speak, the heat will not distribute evenly. Lesson learned! I’m jus glad I figured it out now, because I’m getting ready to build a 32 space baby rack out of a smaller version of this same shelving unit!
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Re: Heat Not Transferring To Tubs Please Help!
From the picture it looks like the rack isn't solid plastic? It's more like plastic grated if I'm not wrong? If that's the case the heat from the heat tape would escape thru the bottom instead of heating up the tub itself.
Re: Heat Not Transferring To Tubs Please Help!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Toad37
From the picture it looks like the rack isn't solid plastic? It's more like plastic grated if I'm not wrong? If that's the case the heat from the heat tape would escape thru the bottom instead of heating up the tub itself.
Yup! Exactly!
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