RHP and/or belly heat?

I would recommend trying a tube first I too run enclosures in a cold room, 68ºF is typical sometimes lower. The RHPs I have are never enough but the FL tubes always are, I have to change the timing of them during the summer when it gets warmer, they get the air too hot.

If the RHPs heated the air enough in your room and deliver a hot spot of 90ºF then anyone in a warmer home could not use them, if they too had a hot spot of 90ºF. Heaters heat consistently if one sort makes a large change to air temps in one set up it will make a similar change in a similar set up. They either run like a heat lamp and heat the air (and yes in an 80ºF room a heat lamp over heats the air) or they don't. If they do they always do they can't have a secondary effect in one place and none in another.

I have a friend whom heats a snake room to 80ºF and uses RHPs if they were to heat the air more than a few degrees he could not use them right?

Have you ever heard of anyone saying that room is too warm to use a RHP?

The more I read the more confused I'm getting:confusd: Sounds like some prefer RHP heat while others prefer Flexwatt; sounds like its just personal preference at this point.

I just want to make sure we're setting up a T10 correctly for our situation.

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Originally Posted by Stormy

The more I read the more confused I'm getting:confusd: Sounds like some prefer RHP heat while others prefer Flexwatt; sounds like its just personal preference at this point.

I just want to make sure we're setting up a T10 correctly for our situation.

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Honestly, go with the RHP. It's been proven to work many times over in PVC enclosures.

I'm really not sure what kitedeamon is talking about but if you decide to use RHP as a heating source, you'll do just fine. RHPs are used to keep proper ambient temperatures NOT to create a hot spot. If you needed to provide a hot spot (which you don't) you'd use an UTH. The whole point of this thread is to let you know that you DON't need a hot spot and that with proper ambient temperature your ball python will do great.

Like Mr Misha said, you definitely want a RHP. Ambient temp is more important since no snake NEEDS belly heat but all snakes do need a warm room. Plus if you do want to create kind of a hot spot, throw a flat dark rock on the floor under the RHP and that will soak up heat from the RHP and keep it warm. I used that method for a while on my big BCI girl but she didn't seem to care regardless so I took it out as it just make for another thing I had to spray down with Chlorhexadine and wash off every month when I do all the cage cleanings. I personally run a RHP with Herpstat in my HDPE cage and I run CHE on Herpstat in my 2 glass tanks and this is all in a 75F room and it keeps everything perfect. I don't use a UTH on anything.

What does RHP stand for?

Radiant Heat Panel

Radiant heat panel, exactly.

They call it that because it is a radiant heat source? Like the sun, or a fire. When I sit on a cold night in front of a fire my back gets cold and front toasts. This is how radiant heat works the radiation travels through the air and strikes an object and then starts to warm that object. It does not heat the air. A microwave works on the same principal, it heats objects not air unlike a convection oven that uses hot air to cook with. This is why radiant heat systems have been used in hockey rinks and out door cafes. Heating the air in such locations is a poor idea.

So you are using a heat system to try to heat air, that by the laws of heat transfer does not heat the air. You are then relying on secondary effect to alter the air temps, like adding a rock so the RHP heats the rock, and then that in turns heats the air. It is similar to heating stones in a fire outside and using the stones inside to heat the house. It works but is very inefficient.

Look at the temps, my RHP has a surface temp around 109ºF to heat a perch to 85ºF the room is cool around 68ºF and if all the secondary lighting and such is off I have 72ºF. It takes a lot of power and costs a lot initially for a very small increase. It is easy to try a inexpensive system first (lights as I mentioned before) to see how well they work on their own. My lighting in total costs only 14$ to buy and a few cents a month to run.

RHPs are ideal to heat raised surfaces. I use them in my Green tree enclosure it heats the raised perch perfectly allowing the floor to be cooler. I have a hot spot that is top to bottom, and left to right. This is not typically how you want them to be used in a terrestrial set up. The warmest object should be at the floor level not elevated.

The belief that an rhp heats air stems from placing a thermometer under the heater, it emits IR radiation that then heats the probe and presto air is heated. This is also why wild claims like it heats 20ºF over the room come into play, but the funny part of that is when the room temperature changes the same person with the same RHP in the same enclosure says it only heats 10º or less.

No heater can hold a constant temperature and vary a secondary at the same time. It is impossible.

If they were such efficient air heaters would they not be called convection heat panels?

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Question, does an RHP make a significant change to the relative humidity?

The rhp makes it easier to manage humidity but I only have experience with it and not heat tape. I move my water bowl closer to the rhp when I need more humidity for shedding and then away from the rhp when less humidity is needed.
My rhp is on the right side mounted to the ceiling. I use a herpstat to control it. I mounted the herpstat probe to the cold side and adjusted the heat to get the temp I want on the cold side. My enclosure is a custom melamine that I built.

If you are going to house in an enclosure and not a rack then I would say a rhp is the way to go.
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/15...1a96492fbe.jpg

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Originally Posted by Firemaniv

The rhp makes it easier to manage humidity but I only have experience with it and not heat tape. I move my water bowl closer to the rhp when I need more humidity for shedding and then away from the rhp when less humidity is needed.
My rhp is on the right side mounted to the ceiling. I use a herpstat to control it. I mounted the herpstat probe to the cold side and adjusted the heat to get the temp I want on the cold side. My enclosure is a custom melamine that I built.

If you are going to house in an enclosure and not a rack then I would say a rhp is the way to go.
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/15...1a96492fbe.jpg

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On the left side of the picture is that the thermostat probe? If so how do you have it secured?

Yes it is and I stapled it to the wall. I used longer staples and made sure they went all the way in to the melamine. Also use a staple gun with a wire guide if you choose to try this. I had to install cable track for the cords for lights and that would work as well to run the probe. You would just have to have the end sticking out. This month is my 1 year anniversary for my enclosure and so far it has worked well other than having to add the cable track so my BP would stop playing in the light wiring, lol.