Anyone using ambient heat only successfully?

Hey Everyone,

I know this topic has been discussed previously, but I wanted to get a consensus to see if people are successfully implicating this practice into their home collections. With my new oil heater I have been able to dial in ambient temps hovering around 80-82 degrees in my snake room. I checked temps in all parts of the room and it stays pretty consistent throughout. Im now seeing that with my ambient temps in the 82 deg range, rather than in the mid to high 70s as they were previously, all my snakes are using their hot spots far less often.

Im wondering if it is still really necessary to keep utilizing the UTHs providing hot spots, and just switch over to ambient temps only. I know that this technique is being used by experts as of now, but if I am able to keep the ambient temps up, why wouldn't it also work for me?

Let me know if anyone else has had success themselves doing this. The species I am currently keeping are boas, burms, retics, bps.

I am using both but not too much variant.
My oil filled keeps the room between 80 to 82 degrees and all my THG is running about 85 to 87 degrees.
I don't know what would be more cost effective but I know in another month I wont need the oil filled here in Texas.

Have you ever experimented with using just the oil heater and no heat tape?

I really want to be able to do this someday. I feel like it would be so much easier and cost effective to be able to build cages/racks without having to worry about heat tape/RHPs/thermostats, and just have one central heat source that I can control for all the animals in the room.

I am wondering the same things as well as would it be beneficial to have a night drop and what would happen to breeding females when they are in cycle and seeking either hot or cold?

There's a thread on here that contains a link to a discussion of this concept by renowned herpers. I will have to look through posts and find it. Essentially the gist of the discussion was that the sole purpose of using all the available heating elements we have at our disposal is to help the snake achieve the correct body temperature of around 81-83 degrees I believe. The person interviewed maintains that all normal physiological functioning of the reptile can proceed at the previously stated temps. Giving hot spots around 90 degrees essentially acts as a heat sink that the animal can go on and off of in order to pull heat from, and achieve the desired temperature. Therefore, if you can maintain the entire reptile room at the correct temperature, there is no need for the animal to need to choose between warmer or colders areas of the cage, as they are constantly at the correct physiological temp.

With regards to breeding I feel like it would work out well, and might not necessitate dropping temps to induce breeding. I spoke with people from Boaphile many years ago, and they claimed that all their in house breeding boas are kept at a constant 82 degrees, and are obviously flourishing and breeding.

I think I am going to try it after my females lay this season with the exception of my quarantine tubs which are not in the same room anyway. Would sure make things a little more simple and simpler is always better.

I use only RHPs and CHEs in my cages. I don't use UTH as I personally don't trust them. Sure with a good T-stat they are fine but if the T-stat goes fritz, then you can have a cooked snake. With a T-stat fritz on a RHP or CHE, the snake will probably be warm but he/she can move to the cool side and doesn't run any chance of being burned. That being said, I've never had an issue with only ambient heat.

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Originally Posted by Sauzo

I use only RHPs and CHEs in my cages. I don't use UTH as I personally don't trust them. Sure with a good T-stat they are fine but if the T-stat goes fritz, then you can have a cooked snake. With a T-stat fritz on a RHP or CHE, the snake will probably be warm but he/she can move to the cool side and doesn't run any chance of being burned. That being said, I've never had an issue with only ambient heat.

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What temps are your RHPs and CHEs running at in your cages? I guess heating a whole room to the correct ambient temp would be the same as getting an enclosure to the correct ambient temps with a RHP.

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Originally Posted by JoshSloane

What temps are your RHPs and CHEs running at in your cages? I guess heating a whole room to the correct ambient temp would be the same as getting an enclosure to the correct ambient temps with a RHP.

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Not exactly. Heating half an enclosure with a CHE, or RHP will still leave a cooler side for your animal to properly thermoregulate it's self. Heating an entire room leaves the entire enclosure at one temp.


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Well I was just saying theoretically if you could use a rhp to get a constant even temp in the cage

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Originally Posted by JoshSloane

Well I was just saying theoretically if you could use a rhp to get a constant even temp in the cage

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You can. If your RHP is roughly half the size of your enclosure, you can set your T-stat to say 90deg, and everything under that RHP will be +/- a couple degree of 90. The temp on the other side will be something like 10deg cooler. That number will obviously fluctuate with ambient room temps though. To make a long story short, you can definitely maintain proper husbadry with either a RHP, or CHE paired with a T-stat. UTH isn't necessary, but it is nice to offer a hotspot to aid in digestion of heavier prey items.

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Nah you aren't understanding me. I want to keep the room at an even 82 degrees. No hot spots, nothing hotter than 82. I'm asking if anyone who uses RHPs keep the entire enclosure at an appropriate ambient temp, no hot spots.

See what I mean?

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Originally Posted by JoshSloane

Nah you aren't understanding me. I want to keep the room at an even 82 degrees. No hot spots, nothing hotter than 82. I'm asking if anyone who uses RHPs keep the entire enclosure at an appropriate ambient temp, no hot spots.

See what I mean?

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Gottcha. Could definitely be done with an RHP so long as it was close to the size of your entire enclosure.

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With RHP and CHEs I get a hot spot of 90 and the cool side sits anywhere from 80-82 depending how cool the room gets with night and day. I keep the house ambient set at around 73 or so. I do hang the Herpstat probes next to the RHPs and CHEs down about 2" from the floor of the cage. So yes, they work to keep the whole enclosure temps right. And if you really want a hot spot, you can just put down a piece of slate or flat rock close to the RHP or CHE and it will warm up and give that hot spot but you need to adjust its position with a temp gun. I personally don't bother as both of my boas very rarely even sit under the RHP or CHE. They spend a lot of the time over on the cool side or halfway between. Once in a blue moon I catch them actually curled up under the heater.

And so you know, the RHP is a Pro Products PH3, the 65 watt version and it covers maybe 1/3 of the cage. The cage is a Proline 48x24x14 HDPE cage. For my CHEs, I use them in 40 gallon breeders for my BP and my little sunglow atm but will be switching everyone around when I order me up 2x AP T13s this summer but it will still be the same principle of how the heat works.

To come back to the original question I use ambient heat alone from april to october/november.

First thing I live in the south, second my snake room is right under the roof so it allows me to achieve temps in the mid to high 80's during those month at NO COST.

For me it was a common sense decision really I could have the room on the main AC and have it cooled to 72/75 (temps we keep our house at) and have a hot spot of 86 or work with what I have. The room is sealed of from the AC unit and we let the temp rise and of course this means at this time of the year no hot spot is provided.

During the winter the room is heated with a oil filled heater and kept at 75 degrees while providing a hot spot of 86 degrees.

So basically efficiency wise I run that room at no cost most of the year, I still need to calculate the wattage for the winter and see if I would be better off keeping the room in the mid 80's and no hotspot vs 75 with hot spot, at this time I do not think it would be efficient as only a few racks are running (by that time most hatchling racks empty and off anyway)

I have done this for 6 years now since moving here prior to that the condition were different my animals were in the basement which had to be heated even in the warm month.

Some very successful breeders are doing the same thing on the top of my head the Barkers, and I know there are more.

So the bottom line is it can be done especially if it makes sense.

I believe there are a few thread about this where a few other members mention doing this as well.

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Originally Posted by JoshSloane

Have you ever experimented with using just the oil heater and no heat tape?

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I have note, yet. May try in a couple months when we start heating up.
My snake room usually runs an ambient temperature in the low 80s during our summer months. I am thinking all the THG also raises the ambient a degree or two.
I would love to see how much it would lower my electric bill..... Don't think it would be enough to offset the a/c in the shed for the rats. :rofl::rofl:

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Originally Posted by JodanOrNoDan

I am wondering the same things as well as would it be beneficial to have a night drop and what would happen to breeding females when they are in cycle and seeking either hot or cold?

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Not going to high jack more than saying its not needed to drop the temperatures.

I do. I'm in south florida, so for about 8-9 month of the year I just open the snake room windows. It's always python weather. In the winter I go with an oil filled heater on a ve-300 tstat and close the windows.

I did for about a year when I lived in an apartment. I had tubs of snakes all over my room before I bought my bigger rack system. So best solution for that time was heating the room. I kept it about 84F. When I get my reptile room I will be going back to only ambient heat again. Just safer to me than lots of racks on heat tape.

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Originally Posted by DennisM

I do. I'm in south florida, so for about 8-9 month of the year I just open the snake room windows. It's always python weather. In the winter I go with an oil filled heater on a ve-300 tstat and close the windows.

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I am in the same area. I have been doing this the hard way for way to long. Going to block the room off like Deborah said so I can keep the rest of the place under air.

Perfect. Honestly this is exactly what I wanted to hear! I really love the idea of only worrying about one heating source. I think I am going to give this a try.

So what is the optimum ambient temperature to keep the entire room at? Maybe 81-84?

so I wanted to bump this thread as I am also interested in this method. I'm going to basically be starting from scratch as I am going to be rebuilding all of my racks with home depot pvc and I just moved last year so I need to build a dedicated snake room again, which the plan right now is to make two small bedrooms into one reptile room with a sink and all the goodies. I had a nice multi thousand dollar plan in my head of how I was going to run all the thermostats in wall, but then I thought why not just heat the room?

I know others have been successful with it. I can insulate it on all 4 sides + top and bottom. It might not be as efficient as heating with tape, but how long until I make my money back from all the heat tape and thermostats up front cost? also summer time would basically be free to heat, regulate by opening windows and if it gets too hot, I would shut the windows and have a fan to suck in air from the house. Racks are far easier to build when they don't have heat. I got my humidity in the room up now thanks to member suggestions, so i'm not spraying cages anymore. The safety factor appeals to me also, a room heater is going to have a hell of a time cooking my snakes vs flewwatt in the event of t-stat stuck on failure. Even with a mechanically protected herpstat... it has happened, no matter how rare

so is there anyone who cares to share their methods? my first questions would be what temp do you keep the room at and I always just let the snakes choose what temps they want with a gradient, do I have to be conscious of that just having one temp?

So, I have unplugged all of my UTH and heat lamps, and I am just letting the oil heater provide an ambient temp that peaks to about 84 during the hottest part of the day, and falls to 80 over night. So far my animals have seemed to love it. All have been digesting well, and seem to be much more active and alert. They utilize more of their enclosure space, and their skin seems more hydrated.

As of now I highly recommend this technique. I love the flexibility of being able to house snakes in variable sized tubs without having to worry about heat tape or a rack setup.

One heating device, and one thermostat, bam youre done.

I would just make sure there's a second t-stat backing up the first one. If you heard about Danny Steele's incident last month, he was running ambient room heat, which is why his losses are so devastating - the whole room overheated, not just a rack.

I agree regulation is important. However, in my own circumstance, my oil heater, even at full blast, does not get the room past about 86, even with temps in the 60s-70s outside.

Without the thermostat, I turned it all the way up just to see its limits while I was in the room, and it didn't overheat.. Once temperatures get warmer in the spring/summer I probably will use it very little and let the natural heat do the job.

I have been picking Sans cera brain about ambient room heating, is there any other breeders you found that also use this method for a couple years? Wanted to get some more perspectives.