Running UTH unregulated?

I had an interesting conversation with the owner of a local herp store where I bought my snake and equipment. They sell the popular Zoo-Med UTH pads and recommend running them 24/7, unregulated, and for a while I was doing this. I've got an Accu-Rite temp probe in my cage and noticed temperatures in the substrate above the heating pad reaching +120F, which seemed extremely hot! The shop owner wasn't so surprised by this, and merely asked whether the animal goes over to that spot, and indeed he does all the time.

I'm not sure thats good enough reasoning to convince me this is an OK practice however, since I've heard stories of pythons burning their underbellies because they cannot accurately sense surface temperature. I switched over to thermostatic control for my ball python after finding this website, but it seems surprising to hear such vastly different recommendations.

Your not going to find that opinion here. We push tstats hard. I personally will only recommend higher end makes and models as I believe you get what you pay for and having had two cheap units that failed I will not risk my collection to inferior products and I will not recommend anyone else to do it either.

The only recommendations you'll find to the contrary (meaning those that recommend running a UTH unregulated) come from those who simply aren't informed about proper temperatures for ball pythons. Putting it simply, it is unsafe (both in the short term and the long term) to submit a ball python to temperatures above 95F. Burns are the most obvious of concerns, but there are also significant neurological consequences when they are exposed to high temperatures.

Thats a bit disconcerting to hear, given the amount of business this breeder does, including quite a few very high dollar morphs.

Almost every time I stop by for feeders there's a first-timer getting started using this method.

It does seem like my BP is a bit more active after lowering the temp with a thermostat, regularly exploring his cage for large parts of the day instead of staying in his hide.

So once upon a time I used a ZooMed UTH without a thermostat. I was first starting out, and all I was told was to "get a heat pad". I never thought about regulating the temperature! In fact, I never thought about a specific temperature for snakes. I figured BPs just needed it "hot". I went to change the substrate in my snake's tank one day and it was so hot it burned me on contact (and I am so thankful I found out before it touched my snake) and it had actually melted the plastic molding on the bottom corner of the tank. It was like touching a hot burner on a stove. I went out immediately and bought a cheap ZooMed thermostat -- It didn't work. I went out and exchanged it for another one -- that night, the pad sparked and melted a big fat hole straight through both sides of the pad.

Lessons I learned:

1. Use a thermostat
2. Use a GOOD QUALITY thermostat

I actually found out the other day that a local breeder in my area who has been in the hobby for 20+ years doesn't have thermostats for his collection, and he was actually pretty embarrassed when he showed me. So, people do it and have been doing it... it's just not a good thing to do. It's a burn hazard for your snake (and like someone else mentioned, the exposure to extreme heat can cause brain damage... think about what happens to a baby in a hot car) and it's a fire hazard for your home.

Another lesson I learned is that just because someone works in a reptile shop doesn't mean they know crap about reptiles! Yesterday I asked a lady to show me the tegu that was in its hide and she goes, "What is a tegu? Which one is it?" :P

I experimented with a quality UTH from Reptile Basics, and can attest that ALL heat equipment needs to be regulated with a thermostat. The UTH got HOT, really hot. Not acceptable.

I'm not sure if skipping a T-stat is a way to save money or what, but I personally feel it's the most important part of the husbandry equation.

The only way you can get away with not owning one, is living where there species of snake you keep occurs naturally. And even then, you are "keeping it" not letting it behave naturally so it's best to listen to the years of acquired knowledge from the keepers that have come before us all and figured it out.

T-stat.