The importance of a thermostat!

Started out this evening when we could smell something electrical burning. I unplugged everything to let it air out for an hour. A hour later I plugged it all back in and didn't notice the smell. Went to bed. Got woken up at 3AM by my sister who had just gotten home.. The house was filled with smoke. Ran over to find the heat pad must have over heated and the whole inside of the wooden cage was filled with smoke and of fire.
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Sorry about the awful pictures, but it is 3AM.
This was an unregulated ZOOMED UTH... This is a lesson I learned the hard way....

Ouch! Im sorry, but yea thermostats are important!!!! Luckily your house didn't burn down! What was in the cage??

Was anything in the cage and if so how did it fare?

There was a beardie in there. It's amazing that he was in there for who knows how long and is still alive! For that, I am thankful!

We always joke about how this beardie can't be killed. He's like 15 years old lol

you're lucky. Stop play Russian roulette.

Thankfully hes alive!

Yikes! Glad to hear that he is still alive and (hopefully) well.

I'm glad everything turned out alright and you're taking it as a learning experience, but why did it get plugged back in? When electrical failures happen the unplug/plug back in method won't fix the problem

Well when I was checking all the lights I had completely forgotten that there was a heat pad even in there. Lemme mention that we were also running a fish tank and our iguana who has lots of lights was in the same area. The whole setup hasn't changed in years and has never had a problem! So the whole time I was looking, I was doubting the whole thing.

As far as the beardie, he's still doing well as of this morning! We're really really lucky he's still alive and I have no idea how lol

A properly working correct tstat is a no brainer.youre very lucky to say the least.

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Yes that is the lesson learned. I'm hoping people will see this and learn from my lesson too. Tstats are a MUST!

From your pictures it looks like you had the cage right on the floor? If so, did you have anything that you used to raise the cage off of the carpet at least a bit so there was ventilation for the UTH? That could be your problem because there always needs to be a gap under a tank or cage like that to let the UTH get air so that it doesn't overheat like that.
Glad your Beardie is ok though, that could have ended badly if your sister hadn't come home when she did.

Yep, I always tell people that the Number ONE piece of equipment for keeping any snake is a good thermostat! :) I did an experiment once to see just how hot those pads get unregulated. I plugged one right into the wall that was taped under a tub with a thermometer probe over the center of the pad. It reached 100 in no time and got up to over 130!
I also must say that those UTH pads NEED ventilation, especially in wood cages. Unlike flexwatt, you can't just sandwich the pad between the wood and flooring and think all is well. I use those pads in my homemade wooden cages and always drill ventilation holes under them in the wood. My newest design has them on trapdoors for outside access as well, so I can reach them quick if they fail. :)

Oh, and just a note: Even at full heat, those pads won't catch things on fire. Most likely, the pad failed and then had an electrical issue. When you plugged it all back in, it must have sparked or something, causing the smoke.

Glad to hear the beardie is ok. :)

although this doesn't really have to do with a thermostat, i almost burnt my house down last week as well. lol more negligence on my part, but these heating devices can be dangerous. my BP was in a glass tank and i had a heat lamp set up with a timer to warm up the cool side of the tank a little since our house is always so cold. after getting sick of battling with humidity and temps, one night i built her a sterilite tub enclosure and got a room heater. since it was at night, the lamp was on the off part of the cycle and i set it down on the carpet not even thinking it was gonna come back on at 6 in the morning. sure enough i wake up to the worst smell i've ever smelled in my life. apparently burnt carpet smells god awful. the smell was so bad it woke me up before my alarm went off, and i'm a heavy sleeper. it melted the carpet straight down to the bottom. there goes the security deposit. :rolleyes: lol


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So far, our best explanation for what happened was a power surge that happened during the day from the power going out.

That sucks! But yus tstats are very important lol.

Im glad your sister cought it before anything happened!! I had my whole house burn down in a electrical fire last October. Glad it was only the cage that got damaged and everyone is ok! :bow:

Thank you, we were very very lucky and lots of changes are being made to make sure this never happens again! :)

I am glad that every thing and your animals are all ok. T-stat no more needs to be said on that. You do know that UTH are not recommended for use with wood right?

While thermostats are indeed extremely important, that would have happened with our without a thermostat. You had a short in the heating pad. An unregulated heat pad doesn't get hot enough to burn wood or carpet....a short does...