Review on 🔌 M-D Building Products 4325 M-D 6-Foot Pipe Heating Cable by Ronnie Cole

I would recommend this product but I had an issue that almost made me want to remove the insulated heating tape from my water line and return it and it's not fun when it's cold outside. I wouldn't be surprised if some others have this problem, which is also a problem for the manufacturer and those who sell the product. I assume that the problem will exist with all other heating tapes; They're probably using the same thermostat. After installing the heating tape and insulation I wanted to make sure it was working properly. I could have done this by watching a test light as it got cold, but I settled on the "Kill a Watt" meter I bought from Revain about a year ago. (I highly recommend this product. It's relatively cheap, about $21. You plug it into an outlet and then an electrical appliance, and it shows you volts, amps, watts, power factor, kilowatt hours, etc.). hooked up an electric heater to the meter and I could see when the heater was turned on and how many watts it was using. (That was 19-20 watts, by the way.) First, I didn't have to go outside with the meter to see the igniter. Actually, the indicator light is under my camper. The problem arose when the temperature (where the heating tape was located) dropped below 30 degrees Fahrenheit several times and the heating tape would not stop. It was quite a bit of time. I wasn't expecting this and thought the thermostat was probably bad. The instructions that came with the thermal tape didn't prepare me for this. You mentioned some sort of flashing for a while, but I figured the heater band would be on all the time before the temp dropped to 28-30 degrees. I don't think the thermostat is bad and you certainly don't need a heater band. constantly on at temperatures between 28 and 30 degrees, but as I said, my first thought was that the thermostat was defective. Apparently when the thermostat first fires and the temperature is just under 30 degrees, the current flow heats the thermostat up a bit and it works again for a while. Fortunately, I decided to watch the heating tape for a while. instead of removing it. I've since found that the colder it gets the longer it stays on and if it's cold enough it stays on all the time. So far this year the temperature has dropped to around 5 degrees and I haven't had any problems with the pipes freezing. Of course, you should insulate your water lines to the recommended levels, bearing in mind that this heating tape only draws around 19-20 watts. A 9 foot heating tape available at local hardware stores uses 63 watts. I hope this hint helps some people.