Freak heater accident, lost a lot of snakes...

Very sad.

To those saying you put a tstat on your space heaters, where are you placing the probe?

awww Im really sorry to hear about the loss of some of your snakes. heating failure is something we all fear :(

It was a Lasko ceramic core heater, with a digital readout, remote, and internal thermostat.
I just checked it, to see if it would work...I set it to 74, and it seemed to run for a while..
I had the door open and a fan running just in case. I checked it some 7 mins later. It read 78 degrees... 4 higher than it should, It did turn itself off as its programed to.
BUT it I think should not have shut off at 78 vs 74.. it may have a differential programmed into it.. but I won't risk that...
Just thought I would let you know.

Did the unit have a warranty?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jenn

Sounds like the ambient temp was 98+ hot sides must have been much higher.

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If the hot side was set right, it wouldn't have been any hotter (since it should have been set at the max around 94 degrees.

I still just don't see how it is possible even at extreme room temperatures to have killed the snakes in just 7 hours when the starting point was 77 degrees. For arguments sake, even if the room near the ceiling got up to 120 degrees after a couple hours (And this is EXTREMELY unlikely in such a short period of time in a room that REQUIRED a heater to stay above 77 degrees) the temps inside the tubs would still be at least 10 to 20 degrees less then that for several hours after the room reached that high point temperature.... And it must have only been at that high temperature for a very short period of time to be able to have time to cool back down to 98 degrees.

Again, to the OP please do not take offense to my questions. I am just trying to pick apart what happened as much as possible so we can all learn from it. Again, I am terribly sorry for your losses.

Sorry to hear of your losses. Losing an animal, much less multiple animals must be a terrible feeling.

Mike, I think you vastly underestimate how quickly a small room can heat up with a space heater running constantly. I have used space heaters, and it would take perhaps an hour, max, for one to raise the temperatures in a room to maximum. Since the bins are already warm, they only have to rise 20 degrees to become deadly. With the heat collecting near the ceiling, it's easy to imagine temperatures well over 100 for many hours. People normally sleep for 8 hours a night (or should). Even if you assume another hour for the temps in the bins themselves to rise, they still have 4 to 6 hours at maximum temperatures. That is more than enough time--as seems very clear, since the animals did in fact perish from the heat.

I wonder how much a good sized water bowl would have helped? The abmient room temps would take longer to heat up the water. The snake could get in the water to cool down. This should give then a little more time I would think? Maybe??

it's never easy to lose a pet. sorry.

So sorry to hear this... :hug: