Ceramic Heat Lamp on side of glass?

For the first week or so I only had a UTH under one side of the tank, but I noticed the temps were a little low (we just turned our a/c on, it was barely 82 on the warm side) so I bought a 150-watt ceramic heat lamp today. Because of the setup of the tank (it is on a metal shelving unit, on the 2nd shelf down, so there is another metal grated shelf about 5 inches above it), I have 2 options for the lamp:

1) Place face-down on the shelf above, so it's not right on the cover, leaving about 4-5 inches between the edge of the lamp and the top of the tank. Will the heat waves go down far enough to efficiently heat the tank, or

2) Clip onto the shelving unit so the lamp is flush up against the warm side of the tank? The problem here is that if it's right up against the glass and is more towards the lower half of the tank where it's easier to get to, will he get burned when he climbs up the side of the glass like he does from time to time? When I moved the lamp to the top shelf facing down, after 5 minutes I felt the glass on the side and it was really hot to my own touch from the outside (didn't feel the inside but I can't imagine it would be much cooler).

I would feel safer with option 1; I would be afraid of the glass cracking or the snake getting burned with option 2. When I had my tank set up I left the CHE resting on top of the screen over the warm side, this worked fine for me temp wise. I eventually stopped using the CHE b/c I ran into humidity problems. I ended up sticking another UTH on the side of my warm side to help me with ambient temps while not sucking up my humidity like the CHE did.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Spaniard

I would feel safer with option 1; I would be afraid of the glass cracking or the snake getting burned with option 2. When I had my tank set up I left the CHE resting on top of the screen over the warm side, this worked fine for me temp wise. I eventually stopped using the CHE b/c I ran into humidity problems. I ended up sticking another UTH on the side of my warm side to help me with ambient temps while not sucking up my humidity like the CHE did.

---

Yeah, I would prefer to be able to put it right on top of the screen but there just isn't room for it. However I think this might end up working a little better in the end as far as air circulation and keeping the humidity right. I just want to make sure it's not wasted electricity/energy if it's not going to heat up enough, but in the 30-45 mins I've had it set up, I've noticed a couple degrees increase (nothing much, but I also opened the a/c vent in my room, as I had it closed before so the room didn't get freezing without the necessary heaters).

Stupid question, but do CHE emit light also?

Nope, stands for Ceramic Heat Emitter and it does exactly that, just emits heat.