SettingsSettings for this calculationUS
The total driveway or walkway area needing snow melt.
Many installations heat only the tire tracks or a central walking path rather than the full driveway width, to reduce cost.
Tighter spacing melts snow faster but uses more cable and more electricity.
Check your specific cable product's rated spacing — this varies by wattage per foot.
Heating cable needed
968 linear ft of cable
This estimates cable length only — total electrical load and circuit sizing (often substantial for snow-melt systems) should be checked separately against your specific cable product's watts per foot rating.
- Cable length before connection allowance
- 880 linear ft
They open the calculator with your figures already in it
Driveway Snow Melt Cable Calculator: 968 linear ft of cable — shown in imperial, US market. The link sets both, so the result they see is the one on your screen.
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How this was calculated
Formula source(s)
- Standard radiant cable industry formula: cable length (ft) = area (sq ft) x (12 / cable spacing in inches)
Inputs used
- Area to Heat
- 220 sq ft
- Cable Spacing
- 3 in — heavier snow load areas
Intermediate steps
- Cable length before connection allowance
- 880 linear ft
Confidence note: This estimates cable length only — total electrical load and circuit sizing (often substantial for snow-melt systems) should be checked separately against your specific cable product's watts per foot rating.
What this calculation does not cover
- Snow-melt cable is a fixed-length, factory-terminated product and cannot be cut on site — cutting it destroys it. So this figure is not what you buy. You buy the next stock length up and then change the spacing to lay the whole cable into the same area, which is why on a real job the spacing is the number that moves and the area is the one that does not.
- Says nothing about where the melted snow goes. A heated strip that drains onto unheated pavement, into a shaded gutter, or against a cold apron at the foot of the drive refreezes there as a sheet of ice — a worse hazard than the snow was, and one no amount of cable fixes. The heated zone has to run out to a drain, a warm edge, or a fall that carries the water clear.
- Counts cable, not the control that decides when it runs. Without a pavement snow sensor the system gets switched by hand, and that fails in both directions: left on through dry cold it draws full load for nothing, and switched on after the storm has already packed the drive it spends hours warming a cold slab it should have been holding warm.
Estimated cost — your price
This site holds no price list for this material — local prices vary too much to publish honestly. Enter your supplier's price and the result is costed with it.
Part of a bigger job
Or plan the space itself: measure it once, doors and windows included, and this figure comes back worked out on that space, with what goes with it.
Computed in your browser — nothing you enter is uploaded. Presented in US customary units and US trade terminology. Where a formula follows a published standard, that standard and its edition are cited beside it on this page; where none governs, the page says so. Local amendments override model codes — verify against the code in force where you build.
Sources checked 2026-09-06 · in the site-wide review of 2026-09-06 · v1.0.1
Regulatory standards & verification citations1
- Standard radiant cable industry formula: cable length (ft) = area (sq ft) x (12 / cable spacing in inches)
Cite this page
Your workspace
Most jobs need more than one number. Add the calculators you need next and they open right here, underneath this one — your figures stay on screen and nothing is lost to a page change.
Protection this work requires
- Stop and check first. Textured ceiling coatings, board behind panels, floor tiles and bitumen adhesive in older buildings — built before asbestos was banned or phased out where you are — can contain asbestos, and drilling or sanding them releases fibres. Do not disturb it — have it sampled first. This is not a job for better PPE.
Tools and safety for this job
To first-fix electrical. Generic types, no brands, no prices.
- Assume every cable is live until proved dead at the point you will touch, with a two-pole tester you have just proved on a known source.
First-fix electrical: This site does not publish a tool list for electrical installation work. In every market it serves, fixed wiring is either reserved to a registered electrician or notifiable to a building authority, and the failure mode is a fire or an electrocution months later rather than a visibly bad job on the day. The calculator gives you the quantities to discuss and to buy against. The installation is a job for a qualified electrician, and the certificate they issue is the point of them.