Water Heaters - heating a driveway

hi,
I am thinking of installing (DIY) a heating system in the driveway & sidewalk. Could I use an electric waterheater to create a closed system? I was thinking if possible, i could put the waterheater in the garage.
thanks
ocntazz

We don't have driveway heaters here in S. Calif ( it got down to 35º once!) so I am not sure , but I think the BTU required to deice a driveway is way more than a water heater could support....especially an electric. Has anyone locally given you an estimate on the btu needed?

Most systems utilize electric heat cables. For example, Electric Radiant Heat Systems and Snow Melting Solutions (http://www.drivewayheating.com/site/page/snowmelting)

I have seen one house we looked at when in the market and it had a short but steep driveway, the system appeared to be home made and done about 15 years ago and it was tubing in the concrete, a 50? gal water heater and a circulator pump. I don't know if it worked because there was no snow on the ground but the owners said it worked "great", What else would they say, but it probably did work I suppose.
I Also know of a guy that has alot of woods and he heats his house via radiant, garage, hottub, water heater and part of his drive with hot water from the central boiler. He has it set up so he can heat his house with a heatpump via forced air, and the water heater and hottub can be isolated from the rest of the system because he uses electric in the summer. (not sure what he heats the hot tub with, probably electric. His driveway system works great, Its a damn big central boiler though, he burns some wood for sure.