THG Heat Tape

I just order 40 feet of the 12" stuff for my juvi racks I got hands on with the stuff at the last Dixie Reptile show. From my observations the plastic coating is thicker which would make of a longer lived product. Also the preferred connection method is far superior to the old soldering method or even clips for flex watt. I've had to trash flex watt soldering it because the copper heated up so quick that it separated from the lasting coating and even the heat rails. I also order the double sided tape I've had problems with the aluminum tape to attach the flex-watt even shorting out if you get it to long. I'm really excited to get in the THG and give it a go. I've go 40 snakes that will be on it, if it does well I'm going to be switching over to it exclusively.

Thank you.

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Originally Posted by The Serpent Merchant

http://thgheat.com/faq/

http://www.reptilebasics.com/heat-tape

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Thank you for the info.

We recently switched to the THG tape. Love it so far. Again, I cannot say enough good things about Rich at Reptile Basics. Any questions that we had, Rich answered right away.

I switched all my racks to THG. The RBI racks were a bit of a cuss-fest, but I got it done.

Love the new heat tape. Seems to be more even heating, and as mentioned above it's stouter than the old flexwatt.

I was right, about having flexwatt on one and my other rack is THG.

Ok so what I did was I turned up the AC and I let my snake room cool off until it hit 77 degrees. I then shut off power to both racks. Both racks are running on a herpstat 2.

Once the tubs was around room temperature I plugged them both back in to see which one would heat up the fastest and hold the correct temperature of 89.4 degrees. The flexwatt heated up the fastest the THG was about 25-30 minutes behind.

I then observed to see which one was not holding the heat the best. Honestly it's a tie for this. They both fluctuate at the same pace. I have the herpstat set on dim so when it would drop a lil it did seem like the THG took a lil bit of time to catch up.

This is what I observed I think both are even and the only down side to the THG from what I can see is it takes longer to heat up. I dont think THG is game breaking either, it's just another option. O and I've had my flexwatt plugged in for over 3 years.

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Originally Posted by Diamond Serpents

I was right, about having flexwatt on one and my other rack is THG.

Ok so what I did was I turned up the AC and I let my snake room cool off until it hit 77 degrees. I then shut off power to both racks. Both racks are running on a herpstat 2.

Once the tubs was around room temperature I plugged them both back in to see which one would heat up the fastest and hold the correct temperature of 89.4 degrees. The flexwatt heated up the fastest the THG was about 25-30 minutes behind.

I then observed to see which one was not holding the heat the best. Honestly it's a tie for this. They both fluctuate at the same pace. I have the herpstat set on dim so when it would drop a lil it did seem like the THG took a lil bit of time to catch up.

This is what I observed I think both are even and the only down side to the THG from what I can see is it takes longer to heat up. I dont think THG is game breaking either, it's just another option. O and I've had my flexwatt plugged in for over 3 years.

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the THG heat tape should take a little longer from what I've read so far as it is less wattage per foot than the same size flex watt. reason for doing this is that it don't top out at a higher temp, as an added safety feature for your snakes.

the THG heat tape doesn't have a top side, so how you installed it is fine, info on the faq on reptile basic's website.

did you temp each level on your rack system to see how consistence the temps are. this is what I would like to improve in my snake room. I have a few thoughts in my head how to go about this, even if I go to the THG heat tape.

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Originally Posted by don15681

the THG heat tape should take a little longer from what I've read so far as it is less wattage per foot than the same size flex watt. reason for doing this is that it don't top out at a higher temp, as an added safety feature for your snakes.

the THG heat tape doesn't have a top side, so how you installed it is fine, info on the faq on reptile basic's website.

did you temp each level on your rack system to see how consistence the temps are. this is what I would like to improve in my snake room. I have a few thoughts in my head how to go about this, even if I go to the THG heat tape.

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Just took the temps after reading this. The THG rack was 89.4 from bottom to top and the flexwatt was off by .3 and .4 on the 3 bottom tubs. Nothing game breaking my THG tape is also only around a month old. Compared to my flexwatt which is 3 years old.

Hopefully the THG won't lose any at all when it does ill have to compare more then.

Any one else have both flexwatt and THG tape so they can try the same experiment as I did?

Let us know :D

This is really good info here folks. I've been using flex watt in my rack for over 6 years now and I honestly can't say that I find that big of a delta from top to bottom. :) I am currently seeing .5 degrees difference at this time. I don't think that's too much or little to worry about. I am very impressed with the lower wattage THG uses in the same space, thus limiting the heat output at the top range. :gj: If more would chime in with some more real use cases then I may consider swapping out the rows of flex watt, but for the time being, if it's not broke...;)