Frost King HC3A Automatic Electric Heat Kit Heating Cables, 3 Feet, Black

Worked as advertised and appears to be well made

Purchased for wrapping water line into my travel trailer. Temperatures dropped to minus 9 degrees Faranheight and kept the water flowing.

Easy to install. Works great. I installed these on the supply lines to my sinks in a new bathroom I had built out in an unfinished attic space at my vacation lake house in NC. The plumbers ran those lines on a day I was not there as I would have preferred that they run them under the floor because the attic gets very cold in the winter and the house sits empty most of the winter. I was concerned the supply lines would freeze and rupture, flooding the house. So far, I’ve made it through the coldest part of the winter without any issues. I also installed older Wi-Fi enabled thermostats to monitor the attic spaces. They did get well below freezing on a few days so am glad I installed these!

This heat strip is very flexible and easy to wrap around a pipe. The indicator light in the plug ensures you have power to the strip. It doesn’t seem to get very warm to the touch so I’m waiting to see how well it performs when the outside temperature drops down below freezing. So far it, on the nights when it has dropped down cold outside, the pipe hasn’t frozen but, it hasn’t really been cold enough long enough to know for sure. If you use these strips, be sure to wrap some type of insulation around the pipe as well to hold in the heat from the strip. Otherwise it will not be nearly as effective in extremely cold windy conditions.

I live in Frazier Park and my plumber said I need to replace my heat strip on my water line. It was easy to install and is a good quality product, I recommend buying it and it is reasonably priced. I have used other Frost King products and I have never been disappointed .

This Frost King 6ft heat cable works exactly as it supposed to work! I have a pipe that has frozen and split two times in a 10 year period in a non-heated crawl space area. As you can see from the pictures that this last time I made the repair I located the pipe 2 inches away from the outside wall and used the thicker walled "Type L" copper pipe. The Frost King heat cable was very flexible (after I tested it and it had warmed up) to easily tie-wrap to the pipe every 3.5 - 4 inches. After it was tied to the pipe, I trimmed the tie-wrap "tails" and covered the pipe and heat cable with Frost King cotton pipe insulation. Then I covered the spiral seems of the cotton insulation with aluminum duct tape to keep away bugs and critters that may be attracted to the cotton. The Frost King cotton insulation is Class A fire rated, so I have no worries that this install is safe... especially with aluminum furnace tape over it. When I first tried to test the heat cable by using ice packs to chill the sensor for 10-15 mins, the cable appeared to be a dud... it didn't get warm and my "Kill-A-Watt" meter showed no power usage. Then I thought that the heat cable and sensor, that have been sitting in my 90+ degree garage for a day, may be too warm internally to activate even with ice packs surrounding the sensor. So, I put the heat cable in my refrigerator, for 45 mins, to chill the whole thing down to my average crawl space temps in winter time. Then I extended the chilled cable on my counter top and covered the sensor with ice packs and wrapped a hand towel around it (just the sensor section) to let the cold do its job. Within 10 mins the watt meter showed that the cable was drawing 42 watts. I left the cable warm up for another 20mins to see how hot it would get and I could still comfortably hold it in my hand. After I removed the ice packs the cable switched off in just under 8 mins in a 70 degree kitchen... so this cable is slower to react to sudden temp changes than I had thought it would, but it works exactly like it should, since it is only keeping water flowing and preventing ice damage.

Very good heat kit. I used to use the Frostex heat kit, used them for many years, but there expensive and their controller cannot get wet. This Frost King is waterproof which is a big plus. This Frost King does Not have an adjustable wire length, you could cut the Frostex to fit but not these Frost Kings, so get an accurate measurement of what length you need. I had installed a 12-foot Frost King but it turned out to be too long, I had to remove it and install this 9 footer.

Easy to install - our outdoor faucet in our barn is about 3 feet above ground. By taping this heater to the pipe with black electrician's tape, then covering with aluminum-backed insulation (also taped), this unit was able to thaw our frozen faucet overnight. We applied it starting with the end of the cable near the top of the pipe, ran it down to about 2 inches above ground, then ran it back up the other side of the pipe to the top. The electric cord was long enough to plug into the nearby outlet. The thermostat is designed to energize the heating cord only when the air temperature falls below freezing. I like the materials used to make this heat kit and have full confidence it will keep our faucet thawed, even in below zero weather for years to come. 5 Stars!

Good stuff.

ok they work

I ordered 3 of these. Be sure to plug them into a GFCI plug in. Regular plug in can be dangerous and a fire hazard. Best to get a qualified electrician to install it. People think they can do it then Ka Boom!

The light is on but not cold enough to see if it is working

I've been using this to prevent our sump pump discharge water from freezing in the outdoor section of the pipe and so far it hasn't let me down. The built in thermostat automatically turns on the heater when the temperature drops to almost freezing. This item is well worth the cost for the peace of mind it provides in knowing the water discharge pipe will remain open and the water won't back up into the sump pump.