Protecting a drain plug de-icer

[wsmoak]

Well… that’s not supposed to happen. The stock tank was 70 degrees this morning. SOMEBODY splashed most of the water out and bent the de-icer yesterday. It must have damaged the thermostat.

Any ideas on protecting the drain-plug style de-icers from damage?

I normally keep the tank completely full as the horse I have now is not going to submerge his head above his eyeballs to bother the de-icer. (He does, however, like to splash the water out when he gets warm… and apparently he needed a shower yesterday. I did not expect that to happen in January.)

210116_7960 by Wendy, on Flickr

[Simkie]

I had to give up on drain plug deicers because of this. My one horse that likes to climb inside the tank destroyed a few.

I finally moved the tank outside the fence, which has solved the swimming (they reach through to drink) but haven’t gone back to the drain plug deicers…the floating ones are so much easier for me to deal with on the rare occasion I need to heat the tank.

But you might want to try that, if your fence set up allows. I just removed the middle board and put the tank outside the field. Really works great!

[ShotenStar]

When we had one that loved to play in the water, we set up a floating de-icer at one end of the tank and then put a wooden cover over that half. We used C-Clamps to hold it in place. It worked well for many years, until that youngster outgrew the need to play in the water.

star

[clanter]

You can get a form fitted piece of heavy gauge expanded or perforated metal to use in the tank to protect the heating element (I have not needed to do so as it rarely gets below freezing here)

A company like Metal Warehouse can provide metal cut to order (they have office all over North America)

Metals | Metal Supermarkets - Steel, Aluminum, Stainless, Hot-Rolled,...

or get some solid concrete blocks from the big box stores to put in the bottom of the tank to a level that would protect the heating element

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Block-USA-4-in-x-8-in-x-16-in-Concrete-Block-GMS-401/202621928?NCNI-5

[wsmoak]

It’s a Rubbermaid tank, and it does have ridges both towards the bottom and at the top, plus holes in the top edge. I think I can set a thick, wide board across the middle of it, above the heater. He wasn’t interested in the de-icer, he was just flinging his head forward and back to splash out water and accidentally hit it. But with a board across the middle, he’ll be limited to one side or the other.

Setting metal on the bottom ridges would be great for the current (ancient) horse but I have a pony coming home soon who is known to put his feet in the water tank. It would have to be sturdy enough to support his weight and not bend or break in case he tried that.