Strip away the snow, the concrete, and the mystery, and a heated driveway is really a layered machine: a foundation that carries the load, a thermal shield that keeps the heat where you want it, a network of tubing or cable that delivers the heat, and a surface that has to survive both winter and summer. Each layer has a job, each layer has specifications that matter, and each layer can undermine the whole system if it's done wrong. Understanding that stratigraphy — the engineering, the layout, and how the whole thing integrates with the surface you drive on — is the difference between a driveway that clears itself for twenty years and one that fails in its third winter. Here's how the anatomy works, from the heat source down to the final pour.
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