Preparing To Build a Snake Rack, Final Questions

So I've decided to build a rack over my reading week. I'm probably going to go for two seperate 5 bin tall units that can be stacked on top of each other. After poking my nose around I had a few left over questions.

Many premade rack sites talk about the flex watt being 'recessed' into the shelf to avoid wear and tear. How do you do that? Any picture examples?

It's hard to do a search in the fourms for 'PVC', since it's apparently too short a word.
-Melamine is accused of warping, is PVC a lot less likely to warp? Is it significantly stronger than melamine?
-Can you drill into PVC without it cracking? If not, how do you attach the pieces?

Thanks for the expertise!

PVC wont warp due to humidity, and has high heat ratings, but is fairly expensive.

I personally built 2 adult racks, 1 juvie rack, and am building 2 hatchling racks all from melamine. They all hold up great. The adult racks are 2 tubs wide by 6 high and stacked. The juvie rack is 2 by 6.

I'm actually going to order some stainless steel square tubing and weld some racks like visions. I'll put a build up on those when they get done.

As far as recessing the heat tape on a melamine rack I don't see the point. The foil tape holding the flexwatt protects it fairly well, and it's a good idea to replace your heat tape periodically anyway.

Hope this all helps.

It certainly does, thank you!

The main reason I'm not using melamine is the weight. The whole pont of this rack is for me to be able to transport it around instead of 8 or so cages until I'm more settled down.