Underfloor heating for Haldon Hill?

Underfloor heating at Haldon Hill on the A38 could solve the problem of motorists being stranded there for hours in snow and ice. Cllr David Cox explains

With traffic grid-locked on Telegraph Hill after an accident on the ice, grit-spreading lorries could not get up to clear the ice, leaving people freezing in their cars for up to six hours.

Now Newton Abbot Councillor Gordon Hook (regularly described as Devon greenest councillor) thinks he may have an environmentally sustainable answer. His plan is to recycle summer sunshine collected by Devon’s roads and use it to keep them ice-free in winter.

By installing pipes underneath a section of road to gather solar energy in summer and recirculate it in winter, the technology known as interseasonal heat transfer, or IHT, involves laying a network of plastic pipes filled with water just below the road surface.

In summer, when road temperatures can reach 40C, the water is warmed and pumped to pipes insulated with recycled polystyrene. In winter, when sensors detect the temperature at 2°C, warm water is pumped back under the road to heat the ground and prevent ice forming.

Cllr Hook believes IHT could be a way to treat the roads which are the first to freeze, but the scientistss are also testing the technology to heat and cool buildings, cuttuing energy bills and lowering greenhouse gas emissions. Because of the significant capital investment needed, only cold spots could be realistically considered initially.

IHT has been tested with a two-year trial on a little-used motorway access road by scientists at the Transport Research Laboratory. Scientists found enough heat was captured in the summer to keep the road above freezing for almost all of the following winter. On average, the heated surface was 3C warmer than the surrounding ground. A larger version is used in Rotterdam to keep a motorway flyover free from ice and heat four office buildings.

Check out more information about Interseasonal Heat Transfer

• Got any more eco ideas to keep us connected when the next snow starts falling? Comments below, please

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