Need advice from those of you with a Ball Python room

[Rickys_Reptiles]

Hello,

Last season I built a dedicated Ball Python room. The room is roughly 10 feet x 7 feet. The room is actually built as a room within a room. The original room was built (from the outside in) Cement, blue wood studs and drywall with spray foam insulation, drywall. The inside walls are built with standard spruce lumber and fiberglass insulation, vapor barrier, drywall. The ground is cement slab, covered with floating engineered subfloor. (This is my current Ball Python room)

This February I was forced to give up the bulk of my collection as I was unable to perform the simplest chores. I underwent spinal surgery in late February.

So, since my room is mostly empty now I am planning to finally finish it. I’m going to use mold resistant drywall and a drop ceiling. I had planned originally to drywall the ceiling, but I like the idea of access to the ceiling as I have ductwork, gas line and electrical up there…so drop ceiling it is. I understand that the drop ceiling panel may mold over time, but they’re replaceable for cheap so it’s not a major concern of mine.

The flooring will be covered with True Comfort radiant floor heating, then self leveling concrete and finally tile.

Question 1: Air circulation. How have you done this? I had planned on installing an exhaust fan (same as used in bathrooms) that would come for 10 minutes once an hour and install an intake vent near the floor. The vent exhaust would take air out, creating a negative pressure, which would pull fresh air in from the floor vent. Would that work?

Question 2: Does anyone use, or find the need for a fan in the room for air circulation, or will the above venting be enough?

Question 3: Does anyone use an air purification process in the room? Filters? Ionizer? etc...

If I'm going to do this, I want to make sure it's done correctly

Can you suggest a better way of going about this?

Thanks,

Ricky Melamed

[Mrl249]

Wow, very nice. We have a Eco- heater that oscillates on the floor, and a fan that oscillates on top since hot air rises. Since adding the fan the heater does wayyyy less work and everyone seems to like it

[Rickys_Reptiles]

[kitedemon]

I am going to add some things to think about.

Reverse the ceiling fan, run air into rather than out of the room. Creating positive pressure and using the low vent on the floor as exhaust. Humid air rises warm air rises and cool dry air falls. Forcing air from the upper level down will prevent stratification and flush cool / dry air out. The room in a room if I have the situation correct means you have a ceiling above the snake room ceiling? If so drawing this air into the snake room usually will draw warmer air into the room. especially if there are a number of ceiling mounted lights and such that release heat partially heated air forced in is better than cool air on the power bills. I would just have a general dust filter assuming the outer room is good air.

10x7 is not overly large so the next suggestion is expensive but not stupid so it depends on budget and such. I would suggest against drywall and look at a product called aluwall or alupanel lite or even ecopanel. (http://www.multipaneluk.com) it is a stress skin aluminum faced PE core. Super light and strong. It is pre coloured so no issues with paint or noxious chemical smells, glossy, water resistant, and seriously easy to clean. The down side is it is about 2x maybe a bit more than moisture resistant drywall. I would use screws and fasten it to the walls that way just butt them tight together. If it is ever necessary to remove or check behind it, dropping a panel is easy.

[Rickys_Reptiles]

That's a great idea.

This is what I've come up with, what do you think? I am going to make a Styrofoam box (Go to my YouTube channel and you'll see how I made my incubator). I'm going to put vents at the bottom of the box to allow air in. There will also be flexwatt at the bottom hooked up to my Herpstat. The air will be warmed to approx 85 degrees. I'll install the vent at the top and attach it to the exhaust fan. It'll pull the warm air through 2 air filters and blow it into the room through a vent near the ceiling. I'll then install a couple of vents near the base of the Ball Python room floor for the cooler air to be vented out of the room.

Thoughts??

[kitedemon]

A basic heat box? That should work although two air filters will cut the CFM of the fan dramatically. The other thing is the flexwatt it is a radiant heat source it will not directly heat air but the surrounding material that in turn heats air. Like trying to heat your house with a barbecue outside by heating rocks. It can be done bust is very inefficient. I'd look to a convection source like a CHE or perhaps a goldenrod they are both convection sources. Just remember all convection sources drop RH by raising ambient air temps but that is the trade off.

http://www.goldenroddehumidifiers.co...ifications.htm

[Rickys_Reptiles]

A basic heat box? That should work although two air filters will cut the CFM of the fan dramatically. The other thing is the flexwatt it is a radiant heat source it will not directly heat air but the surrounding material that in turn heats air. Like trying to heat your house with a barbecue outside by heating rocks. It can be done bust is very inefficient. I'd look to a convection source like a CHE or perhaps a goldenrod they are both convection sources. Just remember all convection sources drop RH by raising ambient air temps but that is the trade off.

http://www.goldenroddehumidifiers.co...ifications.htm

Thanks for the advice!

I'll start with 1 air filter. I suppose I only use 1 filter for my entire house, so 2 for a small room would be a bit overkill anyway.

As far as the flexwatt, it's what I use in my incubator currently and it seems to work really well actually. I'm not planning to heat the room with this "heat box", but simply to heat the air somewhat before I blow it into the room.

The boxes primary function is to blow fresh, filtered air into the room. I was thinking of doing it on a timer. 7 minutes on, 53 minutes off. The room is only about 600 cubic feet and the fan blows 90 cubic feet per minute. So, once an hour the room will get a full flush of clean air that is somewhat warmed up. I may scrap the warming feature of the box altogether and just use it as an air filter - we'll see.

Trial and error is a fun game

Once the box is built I'll be sure to post pics!!

[kitedemon]

Don't bother with flexwatt it will do nothing to the temps. Just the fact it is off a ceiling should help heat for a forced air system needs lots of convection radiant will not work.


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[BPLuvr]

Very nice. I don't have a built room I have just converted a spare room instead. I use an oscilating floor fan/heater and a ceiling fna if I need to circulate more. I saw mention of ceiling tiles. If you haven't bought them yet look into Armstrong Optima Humigaurd. They have a ceiling tile that is basically fiberglass with a thin coating of material on the face. They are moisture and mold resistant and will help hold additional heat in the room. I do building management and have seen those tiles fill up with water from a leak above the ceiling and it trapped it like a bucket. So the thin face layer is very strong.

[Rickys_Reptiles]

Very nice. I don't have a built room I have just converted a spare room instead. I use an oscilating floor fan/heater and a ceiling fna if I need to circulate more. I saw mention of ceiling tiles. If you haven't bought them yet look into Armstrong Optima Humigaurd. They have a ceiling tile that is basically fiberglass with a thin coating of material on the face. They are moisture and mold resistant and will help hold additional heat in the room. I do building management and have seen those tiles fill up with water from a leak above the ceiling and it trapped it like a bucket. So the thin face layer is very strong.

Funny story - I actually did look into those! I looked into Armstrong Vector, which have a HumiGuard Plus "feature". They were really expensive. Because my room is so small, its cheaper for me just to replace the tiles if/when they become damaged.

I just finished the drywall and painting this weekend. Working on the celing this coming weekend. So far it's looking great! Ill post pics soon.