Heat Tape

[3skulls]

Thanks!

I never even noticed.

[Reptilebasics]

I am out here at the Reptile Super Show in pomona. It is indeed a SUPER SHOW. This is our forst sales event with th e new hookups and they are great. Everyone that see it loves it. Just need to get the glasses on to get the eyelet into the heat tape! The eyelet slips right inside the two layers of laminate and is 80+% covered and concealed. Make a tape sandwhich and all done. Super thin, super solid and super strong. Why didn't we do this years ago? I will get all this on the site for sale this week when I get back. Should be Wednesday.

[Ed gilmartin]

Recently a youtube video has surfaced questioning the quality and safety of the new heat tape element that myself and Pro Exotics has brought to the US market. Not sure who this guy is or what his expertise/background in these matters is but here is the response I emailed him:

David-
I just heard about your youtube video. A few inaccuracies in your video that you may want to amend:
1- The Calorique heat tape uses nickel plated copper, not silver for its buss bars. They also use copper without the plating from time to time as well. It is equally easy to solder to each using any rosin core solder.
2- The Calorique heat tape, in my experience, is not all that consistent whether they have a patented computer set up or not. It generally runs about +/- 5% and always has. The new material we are having manufactured does as well.
3-Also, we have had the UL listing done on our element, same as Calorique. The manufacturer being used has an extremely modern facility with extremely modern machinery and standards. A long way from sweatshops. In fact, a very large percentage of homes in S. Korea are heated with this type of element and because of this they have a very well developed element manufacturing industry.
4-The new element has a sturdier, thicker, stiffer laminate material. It is consistent through the entire roll, unlike Calorique who rolls the finished product still hot which leaves it wrinkled and unusable for the last several feet of the roll.
5- I believe you will find the components used in the Calorique element are coming from China.
6- Calorique treats the reptile hobby as an afterthought. I have gone for weeks unable to get element in 2012 because they were too busy to print it. I have been dealing with Calorique for several years and as they have changed ownership the past couple of years all of the problems with them have become steadily worse.
IF there was a manufacturer of this type of element here in the USA OTHER than Calorique I would be happy to consider them, but there is not. The monopoly that they have held has led to an over priced, difficult to get element that is really not all that superior. Have you looked at or tried the new element?

If you would like to discuss this I will be happy to.

Regards-
Rich Goldzung
Reptile Basics Inc


Again, not sure how he comes up with his claims but I will be happy to answer any questions anyone has any time!

[Ed gilmartin]

Rich

My name is Ed Gilmartin. I work for Calorique, the inventors of thin film radiant heat that manufactures Flexwatt heat tape. When you decided to switch recently to another product we decided we needed to take a look at our reptile business. Although it has only been a few million in revenue thus far we realize their is much more business to be gained from this industry. You are correct that we have treated the reptile heat tape as an afterthought. No one at Calorique comes from the reptile industry and fully understood the portential of this market. Your community are very passionate about it and that is not something we could match. We are now also aware that we are overpriced just as you said. That is why we are now looking for someone from your industry to spear head this product growth and will be manufacturing packaged finished mats that we see on the large websites from a foreign manufacturer. We fully understand that you win some business and lose some over the years and have no hard feelings about you switching but I do have to correct the misleading statements in you post. We are a much bigger company with many different products so we don't want any false statements out there.

1) we use a tin plated copper with a conductive silver buss under the copper. Yes we could use a cheaper copper with out the silver buss but will not risk the product burning out to make a few extra dollars.

2)our product is the most consistent on the market. We invented thin film radiant heat in 1980 and have original installs running flawlessly since then. The fluctuation on our product is +- 3% not 5% as you stated. We got a sample of the THG heat tape and in just over a week it dropped 16%. That is very concerning. Korean companies trying to imitate our technology have been coming and going for the last few years. They cannot get our ink mix correct. It is something we guard tightly. This is done using our state of the art proprietary software that monitors the ink at 10,000 images per second. If it spots a slight imperfection the roll is discarded immediately. We will not cut corners on safety and product reliability.

3)in the US we have tight regulations and Calorique is an ISO9000 certified company. We are the only company with a UL listed radiant heat film. Both THG and Flexwatt heat tape are UL component listed not a full listing. The reason we are UL listed for radiant heat film is because we get rigorous audits by UL in our plant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FriXv_2wUA

This is a link to our manufacturing facility that was recently featured on national television here in the US. I told Dave when he called us that he shouldn't be using the term sweatshop because there is no way of knowing who they actually are. The website has no address or any information except pricing so he would have no way of knowing where and how it is manufactured. It is not a fair statement to make when you don't know who the company is and how long they have been in business etc.

4)we use a number of different sub straights for our products. The ink reacts different in select thickness' of laminate. We use only the best laminate for that watt density. Further more we use only virgin material and never use low quality or reused laminates. We've never had a complaint about the laminate in 30+ years. The claim that the roll is unusable at the end is incorrect. That is something we do before the roll is packaged. No manufacturer should be throwing a whole roll into the market and should trim the "dead ends" that are of no use. Our proprietary software tells us exactly where to cut.

5)Calorique uses only the USA supply chain. Nothing in our product is made anywhere but the USA. I thought you would be aware of this and would like to know where you go the information that we use Chinese material. This is something that is of the utmost importance to us. We are a proud manufacturer in the USA and want to correct anyone who says anything different. We are 100% manufactured in the USA!

6)I commend the new ownership of Calorique. They saw a unique opportunity to keep a manufacturer right here in the USA and invested into it. They have hired close to 10 new people that are highly specialized in thin film and ink technology and plan to add additional equipment. They have staved off offers from government officials in china to keep the plant right here in the USA. I do remember once having to hold off a few days on printing the reptile heat tape to do an overly large order for military targets for the US military.

In another note we can and have tested a similar connector to the new connection system you have. This was done a few years back. We have a lot of different connections depending on the environment it will be going into for all our products. The result was that since the only connection to the buss was the thin edge of the punched area there was too high a risk of arching. We are working on addressing this as it hasn't happened with our tin plated copper with silver buss bar.

Unfortunately we had to address your concerns in this way as opposed to meeting and getting feedback. We were unaware that anything was broken and now that we know that pricing and understanding of the reptile industry is a must we are working on new finished mats and lower costing product. There is more than enough business out there for both of us and we are fully aware that it usually takes around three years to get a distributor back when they have switched to a Korean product. Since losing you as a distributor we have been making contacts in the reptile industry to hire someone. Each and every one of them know your company and speak very highly of you. With our new push in the reptile industry we will be crossing paths regularly and we can enjoy a good working relationship. If you have any questions that you would like to clear up feel free to reach me in the office or at e.gilmartin@calorique.com. If you had any info on the manufacturer of the THG heat tape (address, name, manufacturers website etc) I will be more than happy to post a positive comment disagreeing with the sweatshop comment.

Thanks Rich



Thank you

Ed Gilmartin
National Sales Manager
Calorique LLC
646-369-2527
e.gilmartin@calorique.com
www.calorique.com

[PitOnTheProwl]

We were unaware that anything was broken and now that we know that pricing and understanding of the reptile industry is a must we are working on new finished mats and lower costing product.

It only took a couple million dollar loss to slow down corporate greed

[Epic Exotics]

Hey Ed
I see that in Canada it was recalled and a class action suit was filed due to fire hazard. In 1996 the company "closed" but now appears to operate under the name "calorique" Can you shed any light on this.

[Ed gilmartin]

@pitontheprowl. You are misreading what I am saying. Reptile basics were more like $70k - $90k per year. It is a small portion of our business and the industry is much larger than we had realized. I am just trying to get the facts straight. Afer all the hard work we have done to keep our company a proud american company i have to correct lies about where our product is made and what supply chain we use. We are working to correct our pricing by producing much more product that the market can bare. We are not a corporation either. A business man close to retirement decided to buy a local company and keep it right here in the US. For years the Koreans and Chinese have been trying to figure out how our product is so safe, consistent and durable and have been trying to get us to move to Asia but that will not happen. There is no way the owner will have that discussion with all the employees that they no longer have jobs and the manufacturing will be moved to Asia. That would be greed. the great thing is that here in the US there is fair competition but the false statements in rich's post need to be corrected. We have even decided to hire someone from your industry to fully understand the opportunity as well as produce more product to lower the pricing. That is the opposite of greed. I commend caloriques ownership for investing to keep the company right here rather than selling it to an Asian company and making large profits. Everyone has the ability to pick which product they would like to purchase but I would definitely ask a little more on the manufacturer including address, how long they have been manufacturering a product as well as their certifications and audits etc. from the little knowledge I have on your hoppy one thing is very clear that you are very passionate about your pets. Find out a little more about the manufacturer and if that is the product you choose I wish you the best of luck.

[Ed gilmartin]

Hey Ed
I see that in Canada it was recalled and a class action suit was filed due to fire hazard. In 1996 the company "closed" but now appears to operate under the name "calorique" Can you shed any light on this.

Epic

Between 1991 and 1996 builders in Canada were installing radiant heat in the ceiling with gyproc or drywall. There was a major concern that it was a fire hazard in this type of construction. A suit was filed against the three major manufacturers as well as CSA for approving it. They were ordered disconnected in 1996. Calorique returned to UL with a new fire retardant laminate and was approved. Flexwatt never shut down. The name change came with a new owner from a french background. The name was calor (warm in french) IQ (intellegent heat) que was for Quebec. I know it sounds a bit like a diet product as opposed to heat but the new owners toyed around with some Irish names but decided due to Calorique being known as the safest, most consistent product they would just keep the name. Hope this helps.

[Epic Exotics]

Epic

Flexwatt never shut down.

This is what I found on the Better Business Bureau:

" As of October 15, 1996 the Flexwatt Corporation states they are no longer in business."

[The Serpent Merchant]

Here is a thread with containing the data from the tests discussed above: http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...21#post1991921