A terrifying experience.

Today I got home from work around 12 am and when I entered my room I smelled burning plastic quick checked my 2 racks and didn't notice anything strange. Just figured someone in my house burned something with plastic. Went to bed and woke up around 5 am and still smelled it. Took out one of my racks and noticed the back was oddly hot so I took out all my racks and unplugged my thermostat which I've never altered for 2+ months. While taking out all my snakes my puma managed to escape and found her after about 20 minutes. Put all my snakes in temp homes while doing this and noticed the bottom of 2/4 tubs had holes burned through them. The other two had none. The top two tubs were the ones with burns, it even burned a hole in some of the rack. I didn't make the rack or anything bought it already made with heat tape already installed with the tubs for it had my thermostat set to 93 and never touched it after that. Been good till today no idea what caused it but glad I figured it out before a snake got hurt. The heat seemed isolated though when I checked the first time I couldn't feel any abnormal heat from the front-center.

That is like my top fear! I'm glad no one was hurt!

They're all fine glad I decided to 100% check some people burn plastic in/around the house but after 5 hours was odd.

Could the thermostat probe have come loose and shifted?

It happened to me few years back.

There are a few possibilities

1 Thermostat malfunction and the thermostat instead of shutting off just stay wide open no longer controlling the temps.

What t-stat do you use?

2 the probe got lose.



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Sorry to hear about this! Also glad no injuries to any of the reptiles. I never heard of such a thing that the heat tape could burn a hole in the tub. The thermostat probe becoming dislodged or shifted yes.

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Originally Posted by Albert Clark

I never heard of such a thing that the heat tape could burn a hole in the tub.

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http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...ight=heat+tape the good thing was that ALL my racks are PVC and therefore fire retardant.

I don't know the name off the top of my head but got from Petco the ones that turn off and idle if the temp is too high. One of the tubs had a huge split in the middle of it too since it got so hot. Glad all 7 ball pythons are fine even my pain in the butt puma :P.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Naraku

I don't know the name off the top of my head but got from Petco the ones that turn off and idle if the temp is too high. One of the tubs had a huge split in the middle of it too since it got so hot. Glad all 7 ball pythons are fine even my pain in the butt puma :P.

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Yep those are known to fail and they ALWAYS fail wide open.

You want to invest in a reliable thermostat those cheap pet store and ebay and amazon t-stat do not lst and fail in the most dangerous ways. You ware very lucky.

Well, I've used them for longer than on my rack my other snakes in tanks haven't had a single issue in nearly a year. I'm thinking it was the heat tape, I took out the therm and tried it again but the tape just blares. I think the tape on the top shelves messed up since I checked the bottom racks and the tape is perfectly fine actually heats to a decent temp. Also sadly I think my cg champagne got slightly burned from it since I looked at his tail and it's sort of damaged just not burn marks.