Thermostat With Heat Tape...

Building another rack soon and im gonna have 5 or 6 shelves with 12 inch heat tape...so i will have 5 or 6 plugs from the heat tapes...what would be a good thermostat so i could run them all off the same thermostat.......thanks Richie Boo...

Why not run one piece of heat tape? So much easier...

Regards,

B

How would you do that....kinda got an idea but rather hear yours if you don't mind...thanks..

Why not do back heat?

Im open for suggestions... the tubs are around 33 inches long and 19 inches wide so will back heat work...im from New York and winter gets cold here...my house some times gets near the high 60's at night so i use heat lamps in the front of the rack and that works for me but will they be okay without belly heat..will the back heat keep the temps up around 90"s ..thanks

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Originally Posted by RichieBoo

How would you do that....kinda got an idea but rather hear yours if you don't mind...thanks..

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I just weave mine from shelf to shelf making sure not to drill or screwing into the heat tape. This gives fairly even temps. I have a heated room though and an open rack design. You can search my posts for my DIY XPVC rack. I believe it has pics of my rack with tape near the end.

Regards,

B

This is just my opinion, different things work for different people but personally I don't like using one piece of flexwatt. There's a couple reasons I say this, first it creates a pinch point on the flexwatt when it goes between the shelf and the side of the rack. I did a little experiment on a rack I had set up like that and temp gunned the pinch point. The pinch point read 20 degrees higher than mid-shelf. That sounds like a fire hazard. Maybe not, again my opinion only. The second reason I don't like it is because if you are using it at the end of a multiple tub shelf, like a shelf that holds 5-6qt tubs then your end tub is significantly warmer due to more flexwatt near the tub at the end than near the rest of the tubs on that shelf. On my rack the end tub was a 6qt and it was approximately 15 degrees higher!

You can do one piece per shelf and still avoid multiple plugs, simply wire all of the shelves together in a sequence. Then only one plug exits the bottom of the rack. As long all of the pieces of flexwatt are the same width and length you can run all the shelves with one tstat. As a matter of fact, I am using this configuration on 4-32qt racks in my reptile room and one helix is powering 32-32qt tubs total with an overall temperature difference of +/-2 degrees in all of the tubs.

I'll add a couple pictures of how I wire mine and what the end product looks like on a 41qt rack.

Now before everyone starts firing on me, I'm not saying this way is perfect, or "the right way," or that anyone else is wrong. This system has it's flaws as well. It does add labor in that you have to spend time wiring each shelf rather than just one but I think it's a safer way to go by avoiding the pinch point hot spot as well as not having a "hot tub."

Just my .02

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I will say also that my test were done on a closed rack design not open as Simple Man uses (and I pictured) so the hot spots probably woul be less if that's the style you are using. I also forgot to mention that I don't like how snaking it causes me to use extra flexwatt. But again this problem may be more important to me than others as on one rack it would only be a couple feet extra. I make and sell these racks so over the course of ten or twenty racks the extra flexwatt would really add up.

Thanks for the choices...I think im gonna do the weave..not to good with wiring so....i think im gonna grind the sides of the shelves down a little so the heat tape will go down to the next shelf with out getting pinched....i will just grind the shelf the width of the tape....im only using this rack for the big tubs 1 tub per shelf...so im not so worried about the last tub getting to hot...

Its always best when having belly heat to have each shelf on its own plug. This way if something goes wrong you can pin point it to which shelf and fix that shelf. Having them wired on once plug creates a lot of headache when something does go wrong.

Back heat/Belly heat is up to the person using it and where the rack is setup. Thats on you if you want either or. But one continuous piece of belly heat IMO is bad idea over time.

Having one plug per shelf some say, Why too much clutter and so on. Do it right and clean up the wires with zipties itll look fine. And you can unplug shelves not in use to save on the electric bill.

What size heat tape do you think i should use 3in or 11in... my tubs are 32inches long... thanks Richie

I use 3" On all my racks no matter what size tub it is. Snake room is heated at 80-82

If someone were to keep their snake rack in a room not dedicated to snakes at normal human room temperature, would you effectively need 2 strips of heat tape to create the warm and cooler side?

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Originally Posted by Sugarbone

If someone were to keep their snake rack in a room not dedicated to snakes at normal human room temperature, would you effectively need 2 strips of heat tape to create the warm and cooler side?

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Possibly, depends on how cool you keep your house?? Same set-up, you would just need to double up everything including t-stat;)

I think that is what im gonna have to do .....two strips one in front and one in back....

No need for 2 strips. If you are using an open rack or even closed rack in a room temp if 75 and below. Just use 11" heat tape on the 28/41qt tubs. This will heat up larger portion of the tub. While also giving you a 78-80 inside on cool side as well.


On the contrary ball pythons do NOT need a 80 on cool side. In summer mine get 82 but in winter their about 77-78 cool side. So i always tell people if you can maintain a 77-80 on cool side and 88-90 warm side your golden.

Thanks for the help..Rich

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Originally Posted by RichsBallPythons

No need for 2 strips. If you are using an open rack or even closed rack in a room temp if 75 and below. Just use 11" heat tape on the 28/41qt tubs. This will heat up larger portion of the tub. While also giving you a 78-80 inside on cool side as well.


On the contrary ball pythons do NOT need a 80 on cool side. In summer mine get 82 but in winter their about 77-78 cool side. So i always tell people if you can maintain a 77-80 on cool side and 88-90 warm side your golden.

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Thanks a lot :) Yeah just wondering, as I'm not sure what ambient temperatures will be like in my new flat in Vancouver. Never lived there! Hope it works out to 1 strip :P

I run a dual system (in Halifax NS) it works for me in my location. Ultimately cheaper than room heat. I cut my power bill in half. Every set up is different and just because something works for one person it may not work for another.

I have an enclosed rack, with hot side and cool side flexwatt. Both hot and cool are controlled by herpstats and there is a back up T-stat on the rack as well, I have back ups on everything.

What I found was that the rack managed with just hot side heaters until the room got below 75-76ºF once it went below this the hot side dropped as well as the cool side. In my case the cool side temps almost always were 2 maybe 3 degrees above the room temps until I got below the 75 then I lost 3 and soon 4 -5ºF below they hot spot too dropped as the flexwatt simply was producing enough heat to cope. My average summer temps are in the 76-82ºF and the cool side heaters rarely kick on. The winter temps are a different story running 65-70ºF and the cool end heaters are often on.

Riches suggestion for each shelf being individually plugged is a great one. Especially in Canada where the laws require any and all electrical installations for commercial use to be inspected and or installed by an electrician. I run my own business out of my home and because of this I am required to have an electrician in to inspect the rack. It makes the racks very expensive, but the penalty for failure is extremely high.

I'm in NY as well and I can tell you that we use 4" heat tape to belly heat our big tubs. It's an open rack. If you want to go the belly heat route 4" is plenty. If going the back heat route 11" is what you need. If I can be of more help just pm me and i'll be happy to help you out. Tom