How do you heat your enclosures.

[Ruth]

I'm interested to find out how people choose to heat their snakie homes. If some of you have wooden Vivariums how do you heat them.

Thanks

[guidofatherof5]

I have mostly wooden enclosures and heat most of the with flex watt on a thermostat.

[thamneil]

Depends! I like heat lamps with screen topped enclosures. I also use heat tape or pads with closed top enclosures. It all depends on the situation, but I prefer overhead heating when possible.

[Steveo]

For the garters I have screen-top cages so I use overhead ceramic bulbs. I also have a 5-tub rack (got it second-hand) for the others, which has heat tape running down the back. The heat tape is wired into a dimmer switch, so instead of having a thermostat turning it on and off constantly I can dial it in and have it run at a constant temperature.

[chris-uk]

I primarily use heat mats, but I do have one lamp which I use as a supplementary basking spot for my bigger girls. I prefer heatmats and LED lighting because heat lamps and ceramics are so inefficient. At the moment all my vivs are glass ExoTerra vivs, so the mats are stuck to the underside of the glass.
I'm building a couple of new vivs from furniture board and will continue using heatmats in there. I'll be attaching the mats to the underside of a piece of toughened glass (shelves salvaged from a fridge my mum was chucking out). These two vivs will also have some heat supplied by the lighting, I'm using 4W LED spotlights to light them rather than LED strips, and these lights heat to about 35C. My thinking is that having them inside the viv means that the waste heat will warm the air inside the viv. I know their surface temperature doesn't get dangerously high, so it will be a case of monitoring the heat around them in use - I'll have a shelf for the snakies to use if they want to be up in the warmer area.

I use a variety of thermostats, all Habistat, ranging from their basic mat stat, to a pulse stat, and most recently one of their new digital dimming stat (worth a look, they're good stats if you don't baulk at the price - HabiStat Digital Dimming Thermostat.DN +Timer). Oh, actually not all my stats are Habistat, I've also got a Lucky Reptile Pro II stat.

[Ruth]

I primarily use heat mats, but I do have one lamp which I use as a supplementary basking spot for my bigger girls. I prefer heatmats and LED lighting because heat lamps and ceramics are so inefficient. At the moment all my vivs are glass ExoTerra vivs, so the mats are stuck to the underside of the glass.
I'm building a couple of new vivs from furniture board and will continue using heatmats in there. I'll be attaching the mats to the underside of a piece of toughened glass (shelves salvaged from a fridge my mum was chucking out). These two vivs will also have some heat supplied by the lighting, I'm using 4W LED spotlights to light them rather than LED strips, and these lights heat to about 35C. My thinking is that having them inside the viv means that the waste heat will warm the air inside the viv. I know their surface temperature doesn't get dangerously high, so it will be a case of monitoring the heat around them in use - I'll have a shelf for the snakies to use if they want to be up in the warmer area.

I use a variety of thermostats, all Habistat, ranging from their basic mat stat, to a pulse stat, and most recently one of their new digital dimming stat (worth a look,

they're good stats

if you don't baulk at the price - HabiStat Digital Dimming Thermostat.DN +Timer). Oh, actually not all my stats are Habistat, I've also got a Lucky Reptile Pro II stat.

All my heating equipment and stats are habistat at the moment. I choose them as they seemed to be better quality. I don't currently use any bulbs but was thinking about using them in two wooden vivs I've got. I'm unsure of placing a mat in a wooden viv though have thought about maybe sitting it between glass. I wondered if I got two pieces of toughened glass or polypropylene cut if I could make a little place for the mat to sit in. The room the snakes are kept in is very sunny so I haven't felt the need for extra lighting but am thinking that a ceramic bulb might be appreciated I like the idea of very low watt bulbs that wouldn't get hot enough to burn.

[Steveo]

Here's a million-dollar idea, free of charge: heat mats with built-in thermometers.

The primary reason I stay away from the heat mat/thermostat combo is that I need a thermostat for each one. In order to use the thermostat effectively, I need to find a way to run the temperature probe inside the tank without creating an escape route for the snakes. It's just too much effort.

If I could see the temperature of the heat mat (without having to place a probe underneath, which would put undue pressure on the glass), then I could draw a correlation between mat temperature and viv temperature and adjust accordingly.

[-MARWOLAETH-]

I'll be using an Arcadia t5 fluorescent tube light and heating my marcianus' viv. A fake rock background will allow her to choose her basking temperature by changing her distance from the bulb.

But Eventually,I'll be switching to outdoor terrariums for any future temperate herps because i'll able to keep them as close to natural as is possible without adding parasites and predators.....(and most importantly, I wont have to pay for heating!)

[chris-uk]

All my heating equipment and stats are habistat at the moment. I choose them as they seemed to be better quality. I don't currently use any bulbs but was thinking about using them in two wooden vivs I've got. I'm unsure of placing a mat in a wooden viv though have thought about maybe sitting it between glass. I wondered if I got two pieces of toughened glass or polypropylene cut if I could make a little place for the mat to sit in. The room the snakes are kept in is very sunny so I haven't felt the need for extra lighting but am thinking that a ceramic bulb might be appreciated I like the idea of very low watt bulbs that wouldn't get hot enough to burn.

My plan for the mats in the new vivs is to stick them to the underside of a glass shelf, the glass shelf will be 10cm above the bottom of the viv so the snakes will be able to hide underneath (the mat radiates heat in all directions) and use it as a warm hide, or they can hang out on top. I do think that the warm air from the LED lights will provide a higher temp area on the higher shelves so the snakes will have a good gradient to use. I've been monitoring the outside temp of the LED spotlights and I'm sure that it's impossible for the outer to get hot enough to burn, and I'll be using steel mesh to stop the buggers getting in contact with the bulb itself as that gets up to around 45C (does anyone know what temp is considered hot enough to burn?).

Once I've got it all up and running I'll monitor temps and behaviour for a while and if necessary I'll add some extra heating - possibly the sort of heating plates that Greg uses.

I'm also erring towards using two pieces of glass to sandwich the mat between because that will make the top of the shelf easier to remove for cleaning.

[Ruth]

Here's a million-dollar idea, free of charge:

heat mats with built-in thermometers.

The primary reason I stay away from the heat mat/thermostat combo is that I need a thermostat for each one. In order to use the thermostat effectively, I need to find a way to run the temperature probe inside the tank without creating an escape route for the snakes. It's just too much effort.

If I could see the temperature of the heat mat (without having to place a probe underneath, which would put undue pressure on the glass), then I could draw a correlation between mat temperature and viv temperature and adjust accordingly.

It's not a heat mat but but a heated rock. Habistat do a heated rock with built in thermostat, I would worry that the stat would fail though. I do wonder why they dont produce mats that reach only the optimal temp. Hubby is asking a heating engineer friend of his why they don't do this and whether it is a possibility. I can't see why not but then why dont they produce them.