Ground heating
Several of the city's footways are heated from below. Ground heating is primarily installed in central locations with a lot of pedestrians and in connection with other major excavation work. It is often financed in a collaboration between the City of Stockholm and property owners.
In addition to the locations marked on the map above, ground heating has also been installed in the following locations:
- the cycleway from Slussen to Gamla stan (not the whole route as the section closest to Gamla stan does not have ground heating due to excavation work)
- a small section of footway in Kärrtorp (5 metres) from the square to the back of a supermarket
- the square in Rinkeby
- the square outside the Metro at Hornstull
- outside the entrance to the Älvsjö Travel Centre.
In some places, there are heating loops in the ground, mainly under footways in central Stockholm. They heat the ground and ensure that light snowfall melts quickly and prevents slipping. The ground heating is controlled by a thermostat that turns on automatically when the temperature drops to zero degrees Celsius.
When a large amount of snow falls in a short period of time, with strong winds or very cold weather, the ground heating is not always enough to melt all the snow and ice. In this case, we often we need to remove the snow and de-ice despite the ground heating.