Heating snakes durring a power outage???

[Boanerges]

How do most of you keep your Ball Pythons at the right temperature in your house durring a long power outage??? A generator is loud and would only work if you were home durring the outage. A kerosene heater smells funny and still would only work if you were at home durring the time of the outage. So how do most of you combat this problem? Thanks for the replies

[Texas Dan]

How do most of you keep your Ball Pythons at the right temperature in your house durring a long power outage??? A generator is loud and would only work if you were home durring the outage. A kerosene heater smells funny and still would only work if you were at home durring the time of the outage. So how do most of you combat this problem? Thanks for the replies

Get a UPS, like you get for your computer. Doesn't last real real long, but should last long enough for you to get home, or at least keep the temp up high enough for a while.

Computers pull a lot more power than the heaters pull so you should be good.

[starmom]

Have on hand those instant warmer packets. They come in various hour lengths (6, 12, 24, 48, 60 hours). Crack one and put it in a sock (so it doesn't burn your snake) and put it in the snake's warm hide. I have a whole box of these warmers along with other things in my snake first aid kit!

[hoo-t]

We have both a portable generator and a kerosene heater. The generator will not work with proportional thermostats, though! We bought it primarily to use with the incubator, but I will need to get an on/off thermostat to use with it.

The kerosene heater works very well to keep the snake room warm. You're right, it smells funny. But I can deal with the smell to insure that my snakes survive.

I also have a gas range in my kitchen. I can light the oven in a power outage to heat the house to about 60 degrees.

Our last power outage was during an ice storm. It lasted about 24 hours while other people in our area were without power for several days. I have no doubt that the kerosene heater saved lives in my snake room.

Steve

[Gloryhound]

Helix DBS-1000 specifically states "not" to run it on a computer type UPS system.

Right now my wife does the hot water bottle trick around the snakes since we have a gas hot water heater and she is a stay at home mom. I'm looking into wiring up our generator in an auto switching auto start type of set up. Proportional thermostats will run just fine on a properly tuned and maintained back up generator as long as you are running at low loads comparatively to what the generator is capable of making. Refrigerators, electric furnaces, freezers, electric hot water tanks, and anything using a large motor will cause small back up generators to droop in power when they kick on and spike in power then they turn off. At low loads these effects are reduced and electronics can deal with them. The best set up is using two generator one for your herp stuff and the other for the house if you are buying anything less than a 10 Kw back up generator in a small house. Keep all power useage to a minimum. If you don't have to don't open the frig or freezer. Lights to only what you need. As far as checking the generator out you need to make sure it is able to maintain 59-61 Hertz outputs during 25% load changes. If it can't do this it either has a problem or is a cheap unit. Voltage swings from 110 to 125 VAC are as long as it is over a 10 second time period the regulating devices in most electronics should be able to filter it out. These voltages should also be maintainable with 25% step changes in load.