Winter is coming! -dramatic music-

I'm in southern California. I combined one of those portable heaters (on a timer outlet) with a humidifier (on a timer outlet) last winter. Heater dried out the air, so added a humidifier to even it out.

I use a 40 watt red heat bulb just to keep the ambiant at 78-80 at night when my house goes to 65. My bigger problem is humidity, for that i use a reptifogger on a timer to go off every 6 hours, and partially cover the top screen. That usually does the trick.

My snake lives in my living room, which gets down to 55 during the winter (we have a programmable thermostat, which turns the heat down overnight and during the work day when no one's home). He's in a 20-long now, which I kept heated very comfortably last winter by covering the bottom, back, and sides with foam and mounting an 80-watt RHP (on a Herpstat) to the top, with almost all of the screen covered. The 80-watt Reptile Basics panel covers most of the top, so it provides nice even ambient temps. Then I have a UTH running at very low power for the hot spot.
When the living room is in the 50's, the RHP has to run at almost full power, but between that and the herpstat, it does a great job at keeping the temps consistent.
People complain about the prices of RHP's, but it's a way more efficient and cost-effective way to keep one snake warm and happy than to raise the thermostat for the whole house when no one's home, or use a space heater for the whole room.

I'm building a new larger PVC enclosure soon, so hopefully the same panel will be able to do the job in there too. If I have to buy a bigger RHP, I'm totally keeping the 80-watt one next to my desk pointed at my chair!