Irene Preperation - Generators and Thermostats?

With the latest track prediction, it looks like we might get hit similar to Isabel, when we lost power for a week. I have a generator, but I've read somewhere that the thermostats we use (Helix, HerpStat, VE) may not work with a generator. Does anyone know if this is true? If so, is there anything I can buy that I can put inline to make it work?

Proportional thermostats will not work on a generator. Unless your generator will run the a/c in your house and you will be running your generator all day, I would not bother. Believe me, your house will probably be plenty warm enough for your snakes. I lost power down here in FL during hurricanes a few years back and the temps in my house ranged from 80-90 the whole week. If you do think it is too cold I would probably get a space heater and heat the room instead of buying a bunch of on/off thermostats. Good luck.

Actually, I'm worried about the incubator. The snakes I can keep comfortable with an oil filled heater (with its own built in thermostat). My generator does connect to the fuse box of the house, so I'm not sure if that will clean up the electricity enough or not to maintain the thermostat on the incubator.

And, yes I do plan on running the generator constantly and yes I do plan on running an HVAC unit to keep us cool. After Isabel, I did some planning to keep us comfortable should there be another extended power outage. These things are not fun, but you can make them less painful with a little planning ahead.

I was in Va Beach with Isabel and that was a loooong week! Can't believe you didnt have power all the way out there.

I have no idea about the thermostat.

My snake room when power goes out will be heated to 88F with a propane heater if needed. The generator is there for keeping racks heated. The rodents wont enjoy the heat at all but they can be replaced easier than the snakes/eggs.


If you can keep room at 88F just open incubator door to allow it to even out and your all set.

I use a coleman catalytic indoor propane heater with the room window cracked 1" to keep fresh air circulating. one 16oz can on low keeps room at 85F for 8 hours, On high itll hit about 89-90 if door stays closed for 4 hours. You can also get the hose kit and hook it up to a full size propane tank and be set for a full 3 days. Of course one small propane heater wont help in dead of winter, so this is where the generator comes in to power the radiator heater on Med setting(750watts) and then the propane heater is kept on low.

Check out this thread about thermostats with UPS/generators:http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...-or-generators

http://spyderrobotics.com/home/support_ups.html

It depends on the inverter used on the generator. You should have a pure seine wave inverter. So do, some have a modified seine wave inverter that is likely to cause grief. You might try using a simple on/off as a emergency back up.

Like stated either have a on.off for backup which i have about 5 on the racks i can rip off if in desperate need. Otherwise i just keep room at 87-89 and keep incubator door open

When room is kept this warm the snakes will not need the heat tape on so you can snag one of their thermostats

When I use my back-up generator for my t-stats I switch my Herpstat Pro from Proportional mode to On/Off mode. I'm not sure if all of the models have this capability.

But in the case of this hurricane, we are forecast to take a direct hit so I may be loading the snakes in the truck and evacuating for a couple of days... :(

Nope only herpstat II and Pro has the ability to go from proportional to on.off

I ran two Helix proportional tstats off of my generator this past winter for about 2-3 hours. They flickered and reset themselves a lot , but my snakes stayed warm and the tstats have been on 24/7 since and remain in good working condition.

I don't recommend trying this, just FYI :P

Power is now out. Generator is now running. Not going to worry about the incubator until all this dies down.

Tree just fell across our driveway and hit the corner of the house. We are not going anywhere for awhile.


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I hope you guya are doing ok up there. I evacuated to Raleigh to wait it out, so Ill find out the condition of my house tomorrow. Here is a photo of my snakes "roughing it" at the hotel...

http://i1019.photobucket.com/albums/...eTravel001.jpg

Well, now that the tree is out of the drive way (thanks to help from neighbors) and I've gotten out to check on some elderly friends and do some running for them I focused on my snakes. The incubator got down to 80 degrees. I only have one clutch left of 9 eggs. I ran an extension cord from a working receptacle (run by the generator) and plugged the incubator in. It works! Not resetting but slowly heating back up. I don't think one day going down to 80 will hurt.

For the rest of the snakes I'm running an oil heater near their racks. So, all is well.


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Premature post. The Helix on the incubator is now cycling. I'm going to allow it to get to proper temp, then shut it down for awhile.


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