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Devastating Rack Accident!! :(

Random8A

Random8A

Cornaholic
Hey guys,

I just bought a brand new 4 bin Snake Rack about a month ago.

I walked in this evening to smell a terrible burning smell, we couldnt figure out what the smell was, until I checked my racks, I went through them all, and the bottom one was stuck shut, my top rack was turned off and cold, and the bottom ones were burning up, Sadly I lost a stunning Orange Candy Cane male to this accident.. ( It was so bad, the heat pad burned through the wood,through the bin,through the carpet and through my floor. I'm not upset about these damages, I'm just devastated that my beloved Naven is gone, and to such a horrible death, the bin was smoking so bad I could barley breath, it filled the room, house and the neighborhood with a burning smell.

I had two racks running on 1 helix. My snakes are currently not being heated, I'm afraid to my older rack back in, I dont want this to happen again, I already lost one Beloved snake, I dont want to loose another, I will be keeping the room around 70-75 tonight, I'm sure they'll be fine, but just not long term, can anyone tell me what I did wrong, or what happened, I've had these two racks hooked up to the helix for about a month now, and everything has been fine.

Any suggestions or input will really help!

RIP Naven. You will be sadly missed. God I cant believe he's gone, it was just yesterday he was happily downing a mouse for me... Rest In Peace My sweet boy.

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I'm so sorry for your loss and I know you must be devastated. Was it flexwatt? You said a heat pad and I wasn't sure. That is a scary story, I have a couple of older racks and homemade ones but I never thought the flexwatt could get hot enough to actually burn through wood. The one time mine overheated was when the probe got pulled away from the heat tape, the bins got hot but luckily I didn't lose any because I found it on time.
 
I'd return the Helix and get a Herpstat. I know several people have had issues with Helix's not being able to handle two racks (Dean), but I've yet to hear of this problem with Herpstats. Of course it's possible that there was an issue with the wiring in the rack....

Did the probe on the Helix crap the bed, or is that still working fine? Where did you have the probe?
 
Joejr14 said:
I'd return the Helix and get a Herpstat. I know several people have had issues with Helix's not being able to handle two racks (Dean), but I've yet to hear of this problem with Herpstats. Of course it's possible that there was an issue with the wiring in the rack....

Did the probe on the Helix crap the bed, or is that still working fine? Where did you have the probe?
Click to expand...

I 2nd that about the Herpstat. Never heard of problems with them. That being said, I have a herpstat Pro and had one of the probes come undone, and it caused the temps on the flexwatt to shoot to 116º!! No fault of the herpstat, but the probe coming undone caused it to not register proper temps. Could something like this have been the culprit?
 
I'm so sorry to hear of your lose..I would definitely say try and change thermostats and maybe find a better way to keep the probe connected to the bin..
 
That is so horrible! How frightening! I am sorry. I'm glad your whole house didn't go up.
 
I am so sorry.
Something similar happened to me in 2005.
I was using a Matrix cage. It just burned up. I didn't lose any snakes from the incident until I housed 2 corns together short term (until I got another cage). I lost a girl to eggbinding from it, but it was months later. Still hurts, though.

Rest in peace little Naven. I am so sorry.
 
I'm so sorry about your loss. It sounds like it could have been much worse, too.

I don't use any heat pads--I keep my snake room between 76-85 (avg is low 80's) with a portable floor heater w/thermostat, and (knock on wood), haven't had any problems. I did use UT pads in the beginning, but I found the snakes didn't seem to use them. I plan to expand to another room and use a separate heating unit with a wall thermostat. Whatever you decide, best wishes.
 
I'm sorry to hear about your snake. That is hard to deal with.

This is a good note to others. You can't control two racks with one thermostat. If the flex watt strips are different lengths, the shorter ones will have much higher current than the longer ones and therefore get much hotter. It doesn't matter what brand of thermostat you use the result will be the same.
 
That may have been the cause of my rack burning up, I'm not sure. But I HAD used that rack for nearly 7 years like that with no problem at all....
And the temps were maintained during that time.
 
Thank you everyone, I see what your saying Wade. I just got the nerve to hook up my good running one again, my snakes are getting too cold.. I am keeping 10 eye balls on it.
 
That's too bad. Sorry to hear it. As Joe said, I had a problem trying to control two racks with a single Helix. I woke up one day to find every snake in one of the racks plastered to the fronts of their tubs. I didn't lose any, and I don't think I was at imminent risk for a fire, but it was disturbing. I believe the Helix's are rated for 500W capacity, but I certainly wouldn't trust them to handle that. Both racks were Animal Plastics 10-shelf racks, but they were not identical. One was a "narrow" rack for 32qt tubs, and the other was a "wide" rack capable of accommodating one 32qt or two 15qt tubs per shelf. As such, I believe that the heat cable was probably longer on the "wide" rack. So my problem may have been more to do with the uneven load as Wade suggests, than any failure of the Helix. That was over two years ago (I think), and the Helix has been fine controlling a single rack. I DO have a single Herpstat thermostat controlling two racks, but the racks are identical. I've had that arrangement running without incident for about two years as well. Still, I've always intended to go with a one thermostat per rack arrangement-- I just haven't gotten off my butt and made it happen...
 
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