No hot spot, ambient temps only

I'm constantly worrying about the flexwatt/thermostats in my snake room. A couple of weeks ago I ordered more tstats so I could begin outfitting my racks with backup thermostats that will turn the heat tape off in the event of primary thermostat failure. Due to recent events I'm about a million times less comfortable with all of this rigged up flexwatt in my house.

I've seen a few people comment about "some big breeders" who use ambient temperatures only with no hot spots. Are there any of you who are doing this with success, or can perhaps point me in the right direction?

I do :gj:

Here is what I posted on the subject a few days ago

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Originally Posted by Deborah

During the winter they are provided with 78 degrees on the cool side (this is achieve with a oil filled heater) and 88 on the warm side (The warm side is 88 during the day and 80 at night since I cool down my breeders)

During the warmer months (I live in the South) April to September they are kept at 85 with no hot spot, breeders and hatchlings, and yes females have lay their eggs with no hot spot also.

Because the snake room is a bonus room over the garage it gets hotter than in any other parts of the house. To make it efficient energy wise I chose to work with it rather than fighting it having to run the AC to cool it down to 78 and than having to provide a hot spot.

Works great that our second year in this house and the snake have adjusted to this without any issue.

Now would I recommend that to a beginner barely starting out? No I always recommend optimal setting that I know will help a new owner with their animal limiting feeding issues and behavioral problems, once they understand their animal however they should experiment if they feel comfortable enough to do so and find what works for them.

They can be kept various way what necessary is to find what works for your animals and for yourself.

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Excellent post Deborah :gj:

Good news for the summer months, but I was hoping to be able eliminate the use of flexwatt entirely. I suppose I can see how that would be problematic for my girls' follicular development.

What's with your phobia of using UTH? Sure something bad happened with a breeder recently, but how many more hundreds of thousands of tubs are using uth right now with no problem?

Not saying you must use uth, just saying it's by far the most ideal setup to use for a bp; and you shouldn't let recent events be your considering factor in deciding to not use it.

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Originally Posted by Salodin

What's with your phobia of using UTH? Sure something bad happened with a breeder recently, but how many more hundreds of thousands of tubs are using uth right now with no problem?

Not saying you must use uth, just saying it's by far the most ideal setup to use for a bp; and you shouldn't let recent events be your considering factor in deciding to not use it.

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My phobia stems from the fact that running flexwatt is a huge fire hazard several times over and I'm constantly worrying about it.

• thermostat probe gets knocked loose
• thermostat fails in the open position
• tub digs grooves into the tape and exposes metal strips
• improper connections
• connections getting wet

Yes, these are all things that can be mitigated by being careful, but the hazards still exist.

And it isn't just one breeder... I've seen a couple of these cases. This just happens to be the most recent and the worst.

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how many more hundreds of thousands of tubs are using uth right now with no problem?

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That's all well and good to say until it happens to you. My garage caught fire last August supposedly due to a faulty Dewalt battery or its charger that I always left plugged in. These things causing fires are pretty damned rare, but do you think I leave in 24/7 anymore?

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Originally Posted by spitzu

Good news for the summer months, but I was hoping to be able eliminate the use of flexwatt entirely. I suppose I can see how that would be problematic for my girls' follicular development.

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It can be done year round you just need to keep your ambient temp higher during the winter as well.

Depending on the size of your room it may slightly or greatly increase your power bill.

You need to compare risk, cost and how it would affect your collection but it is doable.

Once my room is to full capacity rack wise it will likely be the way I will go about it year round.

Good input, thanks.

My power bill has already doubled in the winter due to space heaters in the garage (rats), QT room, and snake room. I just added up all of the flexwatt and it's close to 1500 watts. The snake room is pretty small, so I'm betting that the trade off on my bill will be minimal.

edit: I just dropped all of the tstats 1 degree and bumped the space heater up to 84. I'll drop the tstat temps 1 degree a week until the hotspots match the ambient temp and then I'm unplugging them.

flexwatt is very low wattage... how did you figure that you have 1500 watts of flexwatt?!

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Originally Posted by Mike Cavanaugh

flexwatt is very low wattage... how did you figure that you have 1500 watts of flexwatt?!

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10 watts per foot of 3", 20 watts per foot of 11".

100 ft 3" x 10 =1000 watts. 28 ft 11" x 20 = 560 watts.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

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Originally Posted by Mike Cavanaugh

flexwatt is very low wattage... how did you figure that you have 1500 watts of flexwatt?!

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watts x how many feet of flexwatt.

I have over 75 ft of flexwatt 3" 6watt in my snake racks.


Summer months my snake room will hit 88f. So i drop the t-stats down to 87 so they never kick on till night time. When AC is on ill open door to give rodents few hours of cool air.

Typically, electrical fires are caused by one of 2 different things. (there are others, but these are the most common that I've heard of)

The number one is loose connections. Loose connections at the flexwatt, the receptacle/plug, a wire nut, the screw on the side of the receptacle, etc.

The second thing is from an arc between a bare hot and ground or hot and neutral. They now make circuit breakers (Arc fault circuit interrupter, or AFCI) that are supposed to monitor and trip in the case of an arc fault. If you're really that concerned, you may consider putting AFCI breakers on your flexwatt. Just be backed up by another form/source of heat, as AFCI's can be nuisance tripping all the time, depending on the brand.

Another thing to do is to make sure you don't have Cutler Hammer or GE breakers. They don't trip very easily, so if there's a problem, they can just keep feeding things with electricity, when in fact they need to trip. There are likely other brands that are horrible, too, but those are the ones I've seen....oh, I'm an electrician.

One thing I always worry about is that the installing electrician/homeowner used the back of the receptacle, or switch, or any other device to make connections, instead of using the screw. I've seen quite a few burned up receptacles from that type of connection being loose. Yeah, it doesn't always produce a fire, but it sure gets close way too often.

If flexwatt is on any type of dimmer/rheostat, it is not drawing/using its full capacity of wattage, so the 1500 watts of flexwatt may or may not be accurate.

P=IE, or Watts=Voltage x Amperage. For rheostat controlled flexwatt, you'd need to measure the amperage and voltage to see the actual wattage being used. Interestingly, you can figure exactly how much that one costs you per day, month, year, etc, if not fluctuated.

Sorry for the long post...

I have been mulling over an idea that I have had ages ago and it is an alternative idea. I have not tried it but the theory is sound and it should work I think.

I thought that there is little to no reason that a hot water heating could not work. A large heated reservoir with hoses running in and around the tubs in a rack to provide hot ends the temp of the reservoir set to 93º with a simple recirculating pump should be able to heat efficiently. Aquarium heaters might work as simple and cheap water heaters. It would greatly reduce the power (I think) and reduce the points of potential failure. If you place a few small holes low in the tub in case of a serious leak and a float switch high in the reservoir everything should be fine.

It might take a reservoir per rack but the cost of thermostats (simple on off ones would be perfect) and likely 12v recirculation system (solar power could be used that is where it all started) the overall cost would not be much more than flex watt and possibly cheaper to run and not as much danger about failed probes as it could be easy to use a back up system.

This is a thought just based on conjecture I am certain it could be made to work but have never tried it. IT would take a few tests to get figured out correctly.

Oh a second thought dual recirculation pumps and dual lines running top to bottom and bottom to top might help with cooling off as it travels through the lines. just thinking out loud... sort of... ;)

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Originally Posted by spitzu

Good input, thanks.

My power bill has already doubled in the winter due to space heaters in the garage (rats), QT room, and snake room. I just added up all of the flexwatt and it's close to 1500 watts. The snake room is pretty small, so I'm betting that the trade off on my bill will be minimal.

edit: I just dropped all of the tstats 1 degree and bumped the space heater up to 84. I'll drop the tstat temps 1 degree a week until the hotspots match the ambient temp and then I'm unplugging them.

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This is what I'm doing as well. Go read my thread on "Re-thinking Belly Heat" I just posted today. On my last comment I have some quotes from the Barkers book that really explains why we do not necessarily need belly heat for these animals.

I just can't seem to get the ambient temp of the room to where I want it, no matter the configuration of the ceiling fan. I can get most of the tubs to 82-83, but the bottom couple of rows are several degrees cooler. Very frustrating.

Anyway, I've lowered all of the hot spots to around 84-86, but won't be turning them off until I can get this figured out. I might have to ditch this oil heater and try forced air, though that's going to kill my humidity.

Have to get something along the lines of the EdenPure Infrared Heater. These things will heat up a lot of space in short time and keep it there.

I've never used any form of heating with my Bp, of course I can do that since I live in the Caribbean... Barbados to be exact...

I've abandoned this project for now since I can't seem to get the same temps throughout the entire room. The bottom few rows are always a few degrees cooler no matter what I do with the ceiling fan. Very frustrating!