what do you do for added protection in your snake room?

So much talk of fire safely, and no one here mentions if they have a FIRE EXTINGUISHER or not. . . .:colbert:

I have one, ABC.

i have a fire extinguisher, ABC, i really believed it to be one that uses CO2-powder that just disappears after a few seconds.

Then one day when i came home there was a burning scooter standing next to our house, one of the new ones that are mostly plastic. With the fire exntinguisher, it was surprisingly easy to put out, i just approached it with the direction of the wind and blasted it, the fire went out within 2 or 3 seconds. Very effective, even the smaller ones. Firefighters arrived 2 minutes later, and told me i did it correctly :)

But it was NOT a CO2-extinguisher as it turned out. I left a large area of the ground and the scooter covered in some white greenish fine powder. indoors, this would be a terrible mess. Anyway, after my experience i say everyone should have one. I was really positively surprised how fast it extinguished that burning heap of plastic. The owners of the scooter didnt have a fire extinguisher and had no chance to put it out, as i arrived they tried to get water somewhere and were ringing doors randomly and already tried half a bottle of soda and tried throwing sand at it, of course they also already called the firefighters.

If a rack starts burning from the backside, with buckets of water you can do practically nothing. But if you blast the whole thing with a fire extinguisher, chances are it will go into all the deep hollow areas and around corners and behind the rack, into the space between rack and wall. And chances are it wont harm the snakes, even if its that nasty white powder, because these things must be safe to use on a person that caught fire, or for a person using it against the wind.

so i think two things are really good: A fire extinguisher on hand, they always come with a way to attach them to the wall, just put one on the wall next to a door. And smoke detectors for the ceiling. Smoke detectors are more important, because they allow you to notice a fire earlier, even if you cannot respond and have to escape, it lowers your risk of smoke injury. That should be the basic package, the stuff costs maybe 30-40 dollars in total, with a decent fire extinguisher and some smoke detectors, maybe even less, i got my fire extinguisher for 15 euros.

For insulation in a snake room I reccomend sprayed cellulose. Make sure the cellulose being installed has a fire retardent in it. I've been insulating homes for 8 years, and have seen cellulose perform VERY well around fires. One house got struck by lightning on the roof. The entire roof burned off, but the fire did not get past the cellulose in the attic. I can also take a handful of it, place a penny on top, and melt it to liquid with a torch in my hand.