Reptile Room Build

[OhhWatALoser]

Well I did a progression thread for my rodent room and got some good tips in it, so I figure I'd do the same for my reptile room. I bought this house last year and the ground floor had 2 small bedrooms next to each other that really didn't make good bedrooms with the flow of the rest of the house imo. So one of them became the reptile room and the other was just storage. Well I think I would be much happier if both of them were the reptile room, so I am making that happen.

So far I have done a few things to prep for this project. I moved the wall of the utility room to actually get some room in that room, which became the doorway to the future reptile room. Figure it could be hidden in the utility room and not attract attention elsewhere for any guests I might have over. Got a new water heater and moved its location, so while I was running pex I ran some for the future reptile room. Have valves for a sink and a hose bib connected to a mixing valve, which will allow me to have any temp water in a hose. We got new windows for the entire house, I had the ones in the future reptile room be privacy glass. When i was doing other work I had a dumpster here, so I took out the closets in the bedrooms just because I had a easy place to throw them away.

Now that my pressing projects are done, time to start actually making this happen. Step 1 move out the reptiles. I give you my front room now:


After moving out all the stored boxes and reptile supply, this is what I am working with, the old reptile room:


you can see through the old closet door:


storage room, standing where the closet used to be, can see the doorway, sink location, and hose:


other side of storage room:


Approximately 15 minutes after taking those pictures:


So my master plan is to set this room up for ambient only heating, but also have the ability to switch to heat tape if I deem it necessary. So that means a ton of insulation and electrical plugs all around. Currently the exterior walls don't even have insulation (I know seriously?) so I will insulate the exterior and interior walls. I think I want to build false walls all around the room to hold another layer of insulation. Then the ceiling already has some insulation, but I want to either frame out another ceiling to hold more insulation or just put foam board up. There is no insulation under the floor currently, which I will be able to do from the crawlspace. I wish i would've thought of this when I built the utility room wall, could've easily used wider boards then, but hindsight is always 20/20.

Heating will be done by an oil filled of some sort with a fan blowing near it to heat the room. I also fear some of the hot summer days overheating the room, so I might have a fan to suck in air either from the main house or the crawlspace to cool it down in emergency. I still have no idea what I want to do for flooring. I also need to see if I have a way to add a floor drain, which I think would be really nice to have. so yea that's about where I am at now, I'll try to post pictures as it happens.

[Fraido]

After seeing the rodent room build, I'm sure this will turn out just as great! Looking forward to seeing the progress.

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[LightningPython]

Following this thread. The rodent room was awesome-im sure this one will be too!
I can't wait to see how it ends up!

[JodanOrNoDan]

I'm getting ready to tackle the insulating end of what you are doing. I'm interested to see how you go with this. I am not sure even how far I need to go with the insulation since I am in South Florida but I don't have any insulation in the walls either.

[OhhWatALoser]

Electrical reworked to separate these rooms from the front room, closets completely removed, flooring removed, hvac going to the rooms capped off. I swear plaster is terrible to deal with on multiple accounts. Hard to demo, breaks into tiny pieces, and it's so heavy that it will take me forever to send it out on garbage days, even if I do 100 pounds or so a week. I might just have to load it in the truck and find a dumpster at work. I'm still not done tearing plaster down either.

With the insulation, I talked to a few carpenters at work to learn about insulation theory. After talking to them and doing my research, ill just be going with fiberglass rolls, vapor barrier on the reptile room side. The more consistent your temps are to your target room temp, the less insulation becomes nessisary, more you add, the easier it is to control. I live in Michigan so I see temps from below 0 to 100 through the year, insulation is a must lol.

Heres where I'm at now

[OhhWatALoser]

Another boring update, but hey its all part of the process.

Removed the old doors to the rooms.





started figuring out how to get insulation in the walls while removing the least amount of plaster

[JodanOrNoDan]

Wow Michigan and no insulation in the walls. My bones hurt just thinking about it. You are looking good and making far more progress than me. I'm still trying to figure out how to "cheat" on the insulation. I'm really not wanting to tear down wallboard. Maybe blow the insulation into the walls? I'm pretty handy but insulation I have never done.

[OhhWatALoser]

If you got holes in the top of each cavity, you could probably use loose fill insulation that they normally use in attics, it was a thought of mine. I figure cut a 2 foot or w/e need peice off the top, should be minimal mud/tape work. The expanding stuff that fills each cavity is pretty expensive and I'm not aware of any DIY kits, it would be the only close to not destroying the existing finish method. there is DIY spray foam kits but they are still expensive and you need access to the whole cavity pretty much. My method is just 3 holes in the wall and sliding the insulation roll down the cavity, easy to justify when you are building another wall in front of it.

I did make another thread for it, but i did have some interesting finds in the ceiling tearing it down, you can check it out here. http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...99#post2465599

I didn't even realize how big of a mess this was going to make, the old loose fill insulation is terrible lol. Might take a few cycles of garbage days to get it all out and a bon fire for the wood. but I have access to all my wall cavities and tons of space for insulation up in the existing ceiling now.

[JodanOrNoDan]

Really appreciate the input and i can feel your pain. Anything involving drywall is a pain and a huge mess.

[OhhWatALoser]

Well spent the whole weekend in the hospital to have our first kids (twins), so nothing got done this weekend and work progress has no doubt slowed down lol. I did manage to get a door in. I give myself props for remembering to shim it up to match the flooring.



Then i realized the electrical placement would actually be pretty critical since most of my racks will be near the ceiling. I didn't want to have lights being blocked and fans being ran into. So I found a free cad program and drew up the room to do a little planning. Bonus, it was something I could do with a little one sleeping in my lap. I tried to have what seemed like a good ratio of 41/28/6qt tubs, maintain 3ish foot walkways (which didn't happen near the incubator but it is only waist high) and tried to keep the windows functional. Nothing is set in stone, but the electrical will be once it's put in. Hopefully I can make something work from this.