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Heating Routes

nimbuzz

nimbuzz

Adam
This is just a quick question, but I really wanted to get people's opinions.

What would you say is more cost effective (in terms of electricity bills), ceramic heat bulbs, or heat mats?
 
nimbuzz said:
This is just a quick question, but I really wanted to get people's opinions.

What would you say is more cost effective (in terms of electricity bills), ceramic heat bulbs, or heat mats?
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Heat rises...

Heat from a heat pad/heat mat will thus radiate upward when installed properly (under the tank/cage). Couple this with various substrates, aspen, repti-carpet, coconut fiber, even paper towels and you get an insulating layer that will aid in regulating temps. Not to mention, most heat pad/mats don't draw much wattage. Example, a 12x9 inch zoomed heatpad I use is listed to only draw 16W. the smallest size zoomed brand heatpad, which I also use only list drawing 4W.

Ceramic heat emitters get screwed into light fixtures, and are to be used in the heavier duty ceramic-base clamp/drop lamp fixtures vs using plastic-base fixtures. They are intended to sit atop a cage and radiate downward. Though they, and even basking bulbs, do radiate downward and heat the specific area, much of the heating energy is lost from it radiating upwards. This is part of the stupidly annoying and asinine, US congress-passed law that has done away with 40, 60, 75, and 100 watt bulbs, which is how I heat many of my non-snake cages. Ceramic heat emitters also come in much higher wattages than heat pad, which the lowest I've seen being 50W. That right there pretty much kills the argument of which is more cost effective.

The better question would be what's the most energy efficient (cost effective) thermostat? A simple rheostat, or on/off type thermostat is probably going to be the most ineffective at regulating electricity to the heatpad. These are designed to be either on (100% energy consumption) or off (0% consumption).

Proportional thermostats are probably the best option when it comes to regulating a heating device, be it a pad/mat or ceramic emitter. These types of thermostats are always on. HOWEVER, they are not always 100% on. When properly set up, they are designed to bring the heating device to the set temperature and then electrical current to the heating device is scaled back (proportioned) to maintain that set temp. In example, my custom incubator is heated with heavy-duty mental pipe tape (http://www.heatersplus.com/hb.html) and controlled by a Spyder Robotics Herpstat ND proportional thermostat. I use two 20mm CPU fans to circulate air and an aquarium air pump to pump in fresh air. When I fire up the incubator for the season, once it has reached temp it will typically only need to draw a 10% load to maintain the set temp, thus avoiding temp spikes within the incubator. In contrast, a non-proportional thermostat would kick on at 100% power once the temp sensing probe triggers the units to come on and maintain temp.

TL;DR - A heatmat coupled with a proportional thermostat is going to be the most cost effective heating means.
 
I honestly have to say, thank you, so so much for all of this information! I didn't really know how to collate all of that information. I have a proportionate thermostat now, but it's second-hand so I will be buying a new one for sure.

Honestly, straightest answer to that question I've ever had - truly grateful.
 
I agree, great answer. I want to add that if you were trying to decide between a heat lamp and a UTH, corns need the UTH to help aid digestion over the heat lamp which provides almost nothing beneficial to corn snakes. Heat lamps are not great on many levels, they dry out the viv, can catch fire, are expensive to run with the cost of the very fragile bulbs and they can harm a corn's eyesight, even blinding certain morphs.

I am glad you got the advice you need, now enjoy!
 
smigon said:
Heat lamps are not great on many levels, they dry out the viv, can catch fire, are expensive to run with the cost of the very fragile bulbs and they can harm a corn's eyesight, even blinding certain morphs.
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How glad am I to have chosen to opt for the UTH over the bulbs. Nope, definitely never putting money towards another bulb again. Out of curiosity, how do the red-night spot lights fare with the corns' vision, do they damage them too?
 
It is the UV rays that harm their eyes, I think that the night lights are okay for them but I will defer to someone with more experience.

I know, when I got my first corn they sold me the heat lamp too, but I read Kathy Love's book and Don Soderberg's book and everything I could find on corns, and I got schooled! This site has been such a blessing on so many levels, not just helping me raise my kiddos better but I have made many great friends, some shoulders to lean on, some people to help who have questions like I did, it is just all around awesome.
 
Oh, okay, thanks for the heads-up. :)

Damn, I feel like an idiot - you can never trust those pet stores to sell you the right instructions... I'll definitely look into trying to find those books, for sure! I hope I can help people one day like you've been helping me, to be honest, I don't know where I'd be without this community here. I just don't want to seem uneducated with so many questions, y'know?
 
nimbuzz said:
I just don't want to seem uneducated with so many questions, y'know?
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We've all been there at some point, whether anyone wants to admit it or not. Shoot, I'm about to be in that territory again in little over a week when I start a new job in a toxicology lab.

Food for thought, and I'm not saying smigon or others are wrong, but lighting can be used for heating purposes for snakes. It's just not an ideal method for many and like many situations in life, most only hear about the negative effects or more often than not negative effects are more easily seen at times. Example, username Chip here on the forum has a blinded albino corn snake from being under lights.

I say this as someone that once curated a Nature Center with many native reptiles and amphibians native to the Chihuahuan Desert/New Mexico on display. Our snakes: desert kingsnake, sonoran gopher snake, Arizona mountain kingsnake, Painted Desert glossy snake, plains hognose snake, Trans-Pecos ratsnake, and western diamondback rattlesnake were all kept in naturalistic cages with basking lamps and GASP UV lighting via ReptiSun 2.0 and 5.0 bulbs. These snakes were kept this way before I got there in 2003 and were kept that way at least up until I left in 2009. Even our gila monster, Ivan, had fluorescent lighting and his cage heated via 1 flood lamp and 1 Active UV heat (now Zoomed PowerSun) bulbs (his cage was very tall, oddly) and interestingly he regularly basked in the mornings and just before lights out in the evenings.

During that same time I at one point had over 9 green tree pythons, also kept under ReptiSun 5.0. I even had a banded rock rattlesnake and desert massasauga (that were supposed to become display snakes for the Nature Center I worked at, but caging never got cleared) at that time which were kept in naturalistic caging with GE Daylight fluorescent bulbs (6500 Kelvin light color), ReptiSun 5.0, and basking bulbs over head. Not once did I ever have any ill effects on these snakes, be they my personal ones or the Nature Center ones.

Long winded still going...I tend to have a different philosophy than others here. Though now the only snakes I have at home under any lights are a lone green tree python (a wamena that came from Freek Nuyt of the Netherlands in 2003...going on 12 years old) and a tarahumara mountain kingsnake (aka knoblochi) and they aren't UV lights, just simply GE daylight flourescents. Am I right for doing what I've said...dunno, again never had any ill effects. But everything I've kept this way has normal pigmentation. My keeping philosophy is more along naturalistic lines, but hypocritically most of my critters are kept in tubs within racks.

And I'm rambling... :noevil: :wavey:
 
nimbuzz said:
Oh, okay, thanks for the heads-up. :)

Damn, I feel like an idiot - you can never trust those pet stores to sell you the right instructions... I'll definitely look into trying to find those books, for sure! I hope I can help people one day like you've been helping me, to be honest, I don't know where I'd be without this community here. I just don't want to seem uneducated with so many questions, y'know?
Click to expand...

If everyone who came here without questions and already knows everything, there would be no forum! That is what this site is all about, asking questions no matter how silly it may seem to you. The only stupid questions are the questions you don't ask.

And as far as the pet shop care sheets, they aren't worth the paper they are written on. It is truly amazing how many people are surprised by the wrong information. The sheets usually are so generic and tell you to treat pretty much all snakes the same regardless of the species. The information is right for some but definitely not for all.

And HerpsofNM is right, bulbs are used for corn snakes but usually by the uneducated masses. They can be used safely but most people find the UTH much easier to use and cheaper than the bulbs.
 
It just amazes me at just how much it varies for each snake (morph or different snake entirely). But your input is really valuable to me, it really shows the running comparison, imo.

To be entirely honest, I will definitely stick with the UTHs once I get my new viv (hopefully in two or so weeks). I mean, I was given the wrong information by the pet store to begin with, and of course, we've suffered on the aspect of growth because of that. Now that I've begun to know more things from you guys here at the forum, the true professionals, I can only hope I can get some length and weight on him before it's too late.
 
Heat rocks are a huge no-no; there is not comparison. They are prone to failure, which can cause unregulated heating, which in turn can cause thermal burning. They are more often than not used improperly as a main heat source, in a cold room, in a cold cage. The result is slow cooking your pet, which again can cause thermal burning. If used, they should also be plugged into a thermostat, so that should the heating coil in the hot rock fail, the thermostat will then regulate the temperature. Even this is not safe as heat rocks are known to heat unevenly, even when controlled by a thermostat.

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showthread.php?198018-Cage-neglected-python-what-to-do/page3

The safest way to use heat rocks....cut the cord and use it as an expensive cage decoration.

Your best, safest, more reliable means to heating a corn snake cage is through the use of an under tank heat pad, controlled by a thermostat, which is monitored manually by either an indoor/outdoor thermometer or temperature gun.
 
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