Types of Cold Tail

As an important part of heating cable/mat, the cold tail which does not heat up is used for electrical connections to the thermostat or junction box.

For twin conductor heating cable/mat, its cold tail is usually constructed of three elements, live (brown), neutral (blue) and earth (yellow and green, or earth braid). We provides two main types of cold tail which are 3 wire round and 2 wire with earth braid. Alternatively 3 wire flat version is available only for twin conductor standard (3.6mm) heating cable/mat as mill standard cold tail. They are all flexible cables with multiple wires.

Type 1: 3 wire round cold tail is used for twin conductor heating cable/mat including standard (3.6mm) and ultra-thin (2.0mm) heating cable/mat. Its color can be black or white, and its joint is always the shrinkable tube connector.

Type 2: 2 wire plus tinned copper earth braid cold tail (oval) is used for twin conductor heating cable/mat including standard (3.6mm) and ultra-thin (2.0mm) heating cable/mat. Its color can be black or white, and its joint is always the shrinkable tube connector.

Type 3: 3 wire flat cold tail is only used for twin conductor standard (3.6mm) heating cable/mat. Its color can be black, white, blue, red or other customized color, and its joint is plastic injection connector (or called thermo-formed plastic connector).

The above is the cold tail of twin conductor heating cable/mat, here talk about the cold tails of single conductor heating cable/mat. Twin conductor heating cable/mat has only one cold tail, however single conductor heating system has two cold tails at each end of heating element. One cold tail is constructed by live wire and earth wire (or earth braid), while the other one is constructed by neutral wire and earth wire (or earth braid), and both these two cold tails must be connected to the thermostat or junction box. We provide two types of cold tails for single conductor heating cable/mat.

Type 1: 2 wire flat cold tails

Type 2: 1 wire plus tinned copper earth braid cold tails

Remarks:

1. For twin conductor heating cable/mat, if not specified, we usually provide 3 wire (copper) round cold tail.

2. For single conductor heating cable/mat, if not specified, we usually provide 2 wire (copper) flat cold tail.

3. The thickness of cold tail is always different when the cable/mat size (wattage) is different.

Taking 3 wire round cold tail for example:

The thickness of cold tail for small wattage is 5.4mm (3 x 0.5mm2 metal core),

The thickness of cold tail for miduim wattage is 7.0mm (3 x 1.0mm2 metal core),

The thickness of cold tail for large wattage is 8.6mm (3 x 1.5mm2 metal core),

We have to ensure the thickness of the metal core of the wire of the cold tail is compatible with the wattage of the cable/mat. If the wattage of the cable/mat is large, we should use the thick wire to make the cold tail in case of the fault due to current overload.

4. The cold tail of our heating cable/mat is 2.5m long. We can provide 3m, 4m or longer cold tail if required

5. The cold tail does not need to be laid under the floor covering to cover its part, but the connection has to be placed beneath the floor covering.