Snow and ice are major concerns for homeowners throughout much of North America, and that usually means pulling out the snow shovel a few times each winter. Shoveling snow can be strenuous and uncomfortable work, but it's the only way to get those sidewalks and driveways clear -- or is it?

If you're familiar with radiant floor heating -- an HVAC solution that uses heated coils to warm a home from the floor up -- that same technology has applications outside the home, as well. Specifically, it's a great way to melt ice and snow off of walking and driving surfaces without having to grab a shovel or even venture outside.

Hard on the Pocketbook

Of course, there's a pretty big catch: the price. The equipment and installation can add a significant amount to any home building or remodeling project, especially if the surfaces you want to heat are far from the nearest power source. And that's just for the heating elements -- there's still the matter of removing the old surfaces and pouring new ones. All together, it can cost well into the tens of thousands of dollars to install radiant heating under the driveway and walkways of an average home.

For this reason, radiant heating is usually only a feature in new construction -- with a plan to install the equipment right from the outset, it's possible to shave thousands of dollars off the installation cost.

There's also the cost to operate the equipment, which can run several hundred dollars per winter for homes in especially snowy, icy climates. But for homeowners who dread shoveling every year, that could be a small price to pay.

Going Another Route

If you're not ready to drop thousands of dollars just to cut shoveling out of your life, there are several less pricey ways to keep surfaces clear and safe.

Heat mats. If you like the concept of using radiant heating outdoors but don't like the price tag, you might find a suitable compromise in heat mats. Available in a wide range of sizes, all-weather mats can be placed on your walkways and powered through extension cords to melt snow and ice as it falls. You'll still need to put them out before the winter weather arrives and stow them away after the storm, but it will at least spare you some shoveling.

Rock salt. It's cheap, it's easy to use and it's available at most hardware stores. It's also incredibly effective for melting ice. But it's not without its downsides -- rock salt can be corrosive to metal and even concrete, so you might expect some damage to your vehicles and surfaces over the course of many winters. It can also harm vegetation, pets and indoor surfaces like carpet if it's tracked inside. So if you use salt, use it with care.

Shovel early and often. You'll spend more time outdoors, but if you start shoveling in the middle of a storm, you may be able to prevent ice accumulation. You'll also make it a little easier on your back by shoveling lighter shovelfuls. It's not the ideal solution, but it beats slipping on a slick surface.

Thinking of installing a radiant heated driveway or walkway? Reach out to your local electrician to take the first steps, or just ask for more smart ways you can stay comfortable and safe throughout winter storm season.

Prisons and correctional facilities are full of security threats, it’s just common sense.

That is why it’s a major task and a seemingly forever ongoing one to try everything in the book to reduce threats and increase security for everyone in, near, or even outside the facility.

Today we wanted to address how we can solve 2 major correctional lighting system and things you should look out for when finding fixtures perfect for your building and budget.

Firstly, a LED prison lighting system will reduce indirect stress and irritability in both inmates and staff.

Secondly, LEDs within correctional buildings will improve detection of movement, which we all know is crucial.

How you ask? Well, lets talk about each one individually and break it down a bit more than just one sentence. From there, we will talk about how to go about making the conversion over to LED, like we mentioned at the start.

Have you ever been around a light that was flickering and or buzzing? It can get annoying, and fast. Imagine living under these conditions, everyday all day; no break other than a few hours when you go outside. Sounds like no fun, and it can lead to some serious stress and irritability issues for both inmates and staff.

For obvious reasons, additional stress on inmates will never produce a good outcome for anyone. But, another important point is that this can effect your staff and guards too. It can affect their ability to perform at full capacity, which in combination with highly irritable inmates is not a good mix whatsoever.

With LED technology, they will never be susceptible to flickering nor buzzing. Not even near the end of the lights lifespan will they flicker or buzz, unlike other technologies commonly still used in such facilities. Thus, you can avoid any stress or irritability which may be caused from flickering / buzzing lights.

If you can’t tell where everyone is at every second, you’ve got an issue. This is especially important for outdoors during the time when it is dark out. Sure, some light is better than none; but why jeopardize your operations with a flickering light when you could upgrade to LED and get rid of the issue entirely?

As you may or may not know, flickering lights make it harder to not only detect movement, but also identify humans. Think of a strobe light, it’s a bit harder to actually make out what is going on entirely. This holds true with a flickering light, even if it isn’t as bad as a strobe light is.

Here we are going to list a couple of the other major general benefits that LED technology offers over other technologies such as metal halide, HPS, fluorescent, and similar.

There are really only two routes you can take, LED retrofit lighting kit will work perfectly. On top of that, retrofitting is a much cheaper option (typically) then a full replacement is. So, if you don’t need to fully replace then stick with retrofit kit LEDs and you will save a lot on your lighting system investment.

Conclusion

Flaws can always be picked at, especially in such tedious and unpredictable environments like the one we are discussing in this topic.