When ambient temperatures get warmer, the inner core expands and the cable demands less energy and creates less heat. As ambient temperatures decrease, the core material shrinks pulling the bus wires closer to each other, creating more electrical pathways through the carbon which makes the cables heat up. The core of our ice dam heat tape is comprised of two bus wires encased in a material that is infused with carbon. This allows you to consume only the energy you need to help protect your home from damage caused by the ice and cold. This means, as the temperature gets colder, the cable creates more heat by drawing more power and when it gets warmer it creates less heat by drawing less power. Radiant Solutions’ Heat Tape PRO™ heating cable is Self-Regulating. Thought you were saving money on that heat tape you got at that home improvement store? Guess again. It is always drawing full power and is costing you peak energy expenses, which –over the length of a season can add up huge. “Constant Wattage” means: it’s always on. Heat Tape purchased in big-box stores is most often constant wattage heat tape. We have even witnessed a coil of crappy big box heat tape starting a fire because it got plugged in when it was still coiled. Heat Tape that is not self-regulating (i.e., ‘constant wattage’) can not do this (they have explicit warnings in the directions not to do this for risk of fire). Additionally, our heat cable can be overlapped without concern. This gives our Heat Tape a great advantage over the heat tape you can buy in ‘Big Box’ retailers, because it creates enough warmth to effectively do its job, but won’t do damage to surfaces that it touches. Another way to think about it is that as long as the cable is above freezing it will do its job, which is to create and maintain melted pathways through snow and ice. However, its peak temperature is not very hot –typically between 60º-85º when operating in a cool environment. At any given point, depending on the temperatures outside, the cable could be a range of temperatures. Radiant Solutions Self-Regulating Heat Tape changes its heat output based on the temperatures of its surrounding environment. The following (2.6 – figure 16.0 & 17.0) shows a snippet of the HeatTape Pro installation manual showing two different clip configurations, more info can be found in the manual itself: Heat Tape Pro installation Manual There are specific ways/configurations used when installing heat tape on a standing seam / metal roof using standard heat tape clips. Installing Heat Tape on a Standing Seam Roof with Standard Roof Clips

Can be set up in a single or dual-clip configuration. The S-5 base is designed to clamp onto the seam of a metal roof as the S-5 Clip holds your ice dam heat tape into position.

It is used in conjunction with the S-5 Base, which needs to be purchased separately. The S-5 Heat Tape Roof Clip is a new, patented roof clip design specifically for standing seam applications with a focus on ease of install and effectiveness. Installing Heat Tape on a Standing Seam Roof with the S-5 SR Heat Tape Clip S-5 SR Clip for Heat Tape & Standing Seam Roofs

Downspout heat cable