Heating the room Vs Individual cages?

[Errabal]

Mainly my question is how do you go about figuring if its more cost efficient to heat the entire room verse the individual cages. My collection has grown to the point where I'm looking to get a rack system. I guess my question is do I just put in a space heater and see how much energy it takes to keep the room up to temp and compare that to what I was using heating the cages individually or can I get a good idea by doing some math, measuring the room excreta.

With All Due Respect,

Errabal

[elduki]

I use belly heat and by having each individual tub heated, the snake can decide when to thermo regulate itself. Opposed to heating the room, you are controlling the temp. So breeders have successfully kept snakes by heating the room as you have indicated. Personally, I just like giving the snake the option to decide.

[The Serpent Merchant]

The real question is what temperature is the room going to be without heating it? If the answer is under 75 degrees you are going to have to use a heater to keep the room at 75 (closer to 80 is better) Then use flexwatt to provide the hot side temperature in the tubs.

Heating the entire room to the 85 + and not offering a temperature gradient isn't going to be cost effective in any way, and isn't ideal for the snakes.

[Errabal]

Thanks you two. That pretty much answers it for me. Thank you.

[kitedemon]

Many big breeders heat the room and offer warm side heat too generally 80/90 or so. Some run no gradients at all but the control needed is fairly precise to insure every snake gets even and equal heat. The idea is to provide the exact correct core temps air for the snakes. My understanding is it is a fairly narrow window. Racks often need something to stabilize the cool end and ambient temps. This is why most have a heated room. (a rack in a room 68ºF with only hot side heating is likely to be 90/71 maybe up to 73 max but this is often felt to be too cool.) If you have normal room temps 66-69ºF it is likely some additional heating will be needed. Unless your room is very poorly insulated a oil filled heater or other convection heater will likely be the most efficient. If the room is poorly insulated rack systems can be made to work but it is not easy and the start up cost can be quite high.

My personal situation is this 350$ rack + Flexwatt 4 inch 45$ + 17 low watt flexwatt 60$ + herpstat pro 400$ insulation and additional materials 150$ machining additional parts 200$ mine is a bit of the edge as the room is often 60º winter and drops to 55º sometimes I hold 90º/80º in the rack and 77º-83º ambient under all these conditions. It is a very painstaking operation. I spend 110$ a month on power (rack plus 8 enclosures) The oil heaters were 5 times this in power bills (I needed two to heat the room to 80º very poorly insulated. In my case one winter paid the total cost of all the additional materials.

[.G&S Royal pythons.]

I use a space heater to keep my room at 83 degrees, and i also use belly heat in the racks to provide a hot spot, i heat the room as an insurance policy, if a heat element fails, or a thermostat fails and there is no belly heat, than there is still enough ambient heat to hold them over for a day or two untill i can fix the belly heat issue.

[Rickys_Reptiles]

I heat my room.

I also have insulated my walls, ceiling and floor....to me heating is easy, keeping the heat in the room is what will save/cost you $$$$