DIY PVC the easy way (plus lots of ways of making it more complicated)

[Coluber42]

I've just finished a new PVC enclosure for my BP. He's still young and may not "need" this much space yet strictly speaking, but it has a good amount of cover (and will have more soon) and I think he'll do fine with it, and benefit from the exercise/enrichment possibilities it offers compared to his 20-gal tank. In any case, setting up a new enclosure using the same heating equipment from the old one and getting the temps right on day 1 is easy this time of year, because the living room is often in BP-care-sheet territory even without it; so I can experiment a little and see how things go. I'll find out what changes or additions I need to make as the weather gets colder.

Here's the "easy way" part: I don't have a table saw, and given my work space it would be fairly awkward to get straight cuts with a jigsaw. So I ordered all the parts of the main enclosure pre-cut, sliding doors included, from tapplastics.com (www.usplastics.com and www.eplastics.com also sell it online, but Tap makes it really simple to just order the sizes you want). Basically, it was very straightforward to calculate all the dimensions, and the only slightly complicated part was calculating the height of the doors based on the amount of space the track takes up and the amount of space needed to get them in.
Anyway, all the pieces showed up cut to spec and ready to assemble, so assembling it was barely any more complicated than putting together Ikea furniture. I screwed everything together first, then went around with a line of PVC cement in all the corners, although I think I didn't really need to do that, especially since there's a plastic bin in the bottom anyway so even an entire spilled water bowl would be well contained before it ever reached the joints. The PVC cement is pretty nasty stuff and you really, really need good ventilation when using it. Plus the rest of the container really doesn't last very long. I think you could completely skip it and be totally fine. The only other thing I did before assembly was to drill the ventilation holes.

Ordering everything pre-cut isn't the cheapest way to do it by any means, although it's still probably a bit cheaper than one from Animal Plastics or whatever. But it's convenient and it lets you customize your dimensions very easily, and then you basically don't need more than a drill/screwdriver to assemble it.


Now for the complicated part:
I like DIY projects, but I can't ever just do the basic version of anything. So my enclosure has a bunch of extra bells and whistles.
For starters, I wanted a removable bottom for easy dumping and cleaning. So I got an under-bed storage bin and cut off the top half, leaving a tray about 4" deep, and I planned the footprint of the enclosure around those dimensions. This also has two other advantages: One, I can use a UTH inside the PVC box but outside the plastic bin, which means it doesn't have to heat all the way through half-inch PVC. Two, in the winter my living room gets down as low as 55° during the work day and overnight, which means that in a glass tank I have to watch out for condensation in the corners when the temps and humidity are otherwise correct. The "false bottom" will mean that there's a little more air around the outside of the plastic but inside the enclosure, so there won't be any damp aspen in the corners.
But the bin is not really a rectangle; it has cut outs where it has handles, and the corners are rounded. So I put a 3" wide shelf just above the edge of the bin, with just enough room to slide the bin out over the bottom track for the sliding doors. The shelves also mean that I can pull the bin partway out like a drawer and it won't fall, which is fairly handy for getting at stuff in the back corners.



You'll notice this looks very tall for a BP enclosure. It is tall, in order to provide climbing opportunities and to make more effective space by using upper levels. But this is still for a BP, so I wanted to build upper levels that have walls so they can have substrate and hides, and feel like a more normal place for a BP to hang out than just a basking shelf. So I made a frame out of PVC that holds two upper levels. The other function of this frame is to hold the RHP. With such a tall enclosure, I wanted the RHP closer to the floor. So instead of mounting it to the ceiling, it's mounted to the underside of the second story, and that was what determined the dimensions of the frame. Since I couldn't find a plastic bin exactly the same dimensions as the RHP, I built my own PVC tray that sits in shelf brackets in the frame above the RHP. That means that the snake can't climb around or pee on the RHP, but the panel is still closer to the floor and also located centrally in the cage, which I hope will help keep the heat distributed evenly. The middle level is just a plastic bin hanging from the rails.



The sliding door track came in a 6-foot length. So I mounted tracks on the sides as well as the top and bottom to hold the edges of the doors when they're closed. The cords for the RHP, light, thermostat probes, etc, all go in and out through a hold with a desk grommet in it. I used a 1.5" hole because I already had a hole saw that size and most plugs will fit through it. The desk grommet just pops into the hole from the inside of the cage. It's a snug-ish fit, but I could see a snake eventually working it out if there are cords it could climb on that could wiggle it around. But as long as the cords are tacked down it's not going anywhere.

For starters, I just put in basically all the same stuff from Hoosac's tank in the bottom level, in mostly the same configuration, plus a few random paper towels, and a few other things he's familiar with in the upper levels. It's going to get some more fake plants in the next few days, and then some real plants too. To that end, there's a fluorescent fixture in there, which will be on a timer, but I'm going to let him settle in a bit before I set that up. At the moment, he's making a full inspection of the new digs. And right after taking the photo I noticed that he'd "christened" it with a big ol' poop. (So while you're ignoring that big pile in the corner, you can also ignore that the two readings on the thermometer are practically the same - before turning on the UTH I wanted to see what the temperature differential would look like with just the panel)



That piece down at the bottom in front is there to fill in the gaps between the top of the plastic bin and the sliding doors. It has the arch cut out to accommodate the slight curvature of the bottom of the bin. It's not screwed in or anything, because that would stop the bottom from coming out. So it's just held in place by the sliding doors.
The one big thing left to do is to add a very low-profile track on the sides to hold plastic sheets to slide over the ventilation holes as needed in order to maintain the humidity in the winter. That's not immediately urgent, but I know I'll need to at least partially cover those holes come January. I'm also planning to add some pothos and spider plants in hopefully-un-tip-able containers on the two upper levels, so that the pothos vines can hang down. The other thing I want to try with pothos is putting the pot on top of the cage and poking the growing end of the vines in through a hole. Then it can grow into the enclosure without having to have its soil sat on or knocked over. We'll see how that works out.

All in all, this was a fun project that went pretty smoothly. In case it isn't clear, the material in question is "Foamed PVC" or "Expanded PVC"; it's not solid PVC like pipes are made of. In some ways it's like working with plywood, but not. It's more plasticky, a bit more uniformly bendy. You can sand it, but the dust is probably worse for you than wood dust. You only really want to sand it at edges though, since the flat surface is satiny and smooth molded, and the cut edges are not. The other thing to know about it is that it gets dinged up pretty easily, and dings and holes show up more than they do on wood. That stuff would probably show up less if it were gray or black. But otherwise, the PVC is pretty easy to work with. If you have a table saw, it's probably cheaper to cut it yourself. If not, ordering it pre-cut is a good way to go.

[piedlover79]

Looks great!!!

[Nellasaur]

This is crazy cool. What a great build!

[Reinz]

Very impressive Col!

I love your idea of the tracks on the side for extra security. I've had one of my Boa's blow a 1/4" plastic door out along with the tracking to escape.

Then one of my Carpets bowed the 1/4" plastic so far that her 4" + diameter body could easily escape.

That's why I' ll never have anymore plastic sliding doors in the future! They suck for large escape artists.




Elenore



Lizzy

[Coluber42]

So far, the one glitch is that there's juuust enough of a gap between the front edge of that arched piece and the outside sliding door that Hoosac can wedge his head into it, if he loops himself over the upper frame in order to get a good angle on it. I've stuffed a paper towel in there for now, which solves the problem, but is a little inconvenient for opening the doors. So I might have to come up with another solution until his head gets too big to do that. Although I have to admit it was kind of fun watching his problem solving process trying to figure out how to get himself positioned to be able to try and squeeze his way down there. It makes me want to try a puzzle feeder with him!
But he seems to be settling in well. During the day he's been in the same hide in the same spot that he was in his old tank, but there's a duplicate of his other favorite hide (which is actually a piece of moss mat rolled into a tube) on the "top floor" and when I got up to pee in the middle of the night he was in that one. Last night we were in the living room and he was hanging out on his upper level with his head resting on the edge of the tray so he could look out into the room. Maybe he likes the vantage point, or maybe he was just waiting for us to go away so he could go prowling. But I really do think he will use and benefit from the space, the multiple levels, climbing opportunities, etc.


Yeah, I wouldn't do sliding doors (at least not out of 1/4" acrylic) this tall for a bigger/stronger snake than a BP without some reinforcement. Although actually reinforcing the edges of the doors with a stiffer edging or molding where they overlap would probably make it work for a bigger snake (although would defeat the purpose of having a mostly uninterrupted view in front would both make the edges stiffer and also take up the gap between the two. I wouldn't be surprised if the way your snake blew them out was not actually by head-butting them directly, but by wedging into the gap. A vertical piece (wouldn't even have to be very wide actually) in front to support the overlap area so the doors couldn't flex out would also help support the doors, and that piece could be held in place with a latch to make it removable for when you want to take off the doors and clean.

The other thing I'd do differently for a larger/heavier species is that PVC pipe is not the stiffest thing for its diameter. The framework I built will be fine for a BP, but a heavier snake might make it sag too much. The easiest way to fix that would be to just stick a dowel or aluminum tube or something inside to make it stiffer, or the whole thing could be built out of a heavier gauge pipe (although that gets heavy pretty fast).

Other construction notes, for anyone who's interested: The interior width of the cage is 42", and that's getting close to what I would consider the max width would be for having a ceiling out of just PVC that isn't supported in the middle. It wants to sag a little, although the sliding doors do help support it and that little bit of sag actually makes the doors more secure if anything. But much wider than this and the front edge should really be supported. One way would be with a vertical support in the middle. Another possibility would be to make a "lip" across the top and the bottom, using two pieces together to make it 1" wide, with the sliding door track mounted in that narrower opening. This would also make the doors less flexy because they'd be shorter, and the lower lip would contain the substrate too.

[Coluber42]

Just adding an updated pic, with a few more details:



The light on the right side is now on a timer, and there are now two live plants in back (the one on the right side is a bit hard to pick out behind the fake plants). Also, on the upper left, there is a pothos vine coming in through a hole in the side, with the rest of the plant in a container sitting on top. We'll see if it can grow like this; it isn't really getting that much light where it is, but hopefully if it grows just a bit it will start getting more. Down the line, I plan on planting the lower platform with pothos and spider plant, but those are still sprouting in containers at work and not ready to go in yet, and Hoosac has had enough upheaval in his life for now anyway.
The moon thing on the left side is an exo-terra nightlight thingy that looks like a moon. The way it comes is way too bright as a night light IMO, so my partner installed a dimmer in the cord. We turn it on low in the evenings so we can see in, and then turn it lower or off when we go to bed.

The blue and green foam strips across the front are a sort of soft, flexible gasket made of foam to prevent Hoosac from wedging himself down in between the sliding doors and the edge of the white arch-shaped thing. It adds up to a sort of excessively complex-sounding system, but it actually works out pretty well. The foam isn't anything he could get hurt on, it just covers the gap that you get between the outer of the sliding doors and whatever is behind it on the inside. Even without it, there's nowhere he could go; but I could see him getting rubbing/scraping injuries from doing that.

I've also found that as the weather has gotten chillier, the floor on the right side (away from the RHP) has been getting colder than I'd like, although the middle platform stays around 80-ish. So I got a large heat mat and put it under the plastic bin on the right side, which solves that problem even with the heat mat on really low power and lets me turn the previously-cold side into a hot spot.

Speaking of heating, as the weather has gotten chillier and the RHP has been running higher, the upper platform had started getting pretty warm. Not hot enough to burn, but it was about as warm as I think it should ever be, and the panel still isn't running as much as it will in the dead of winter when the living room is another 5-10 degrees cooler than it is now. So I added some insulation between the RHP and the pvc tray that makes the upper platform: one layer of aluminum foil, two layers of coroplast (corrugated plastic), and one layer of foam. That has kept the temperature on the upper platform only a couple of degrees warmer than the temperature at floor level, which leaves room for it to safely climb a bit when the weather gets colder.
But once that insulation situation got sorted out, all in all, I'm basically happy with the results of combining the RHP with a platform in order to make the most efficient use of it in a tall enclosure. The one thing that I think would make it more efficient is a fan to circulate the warm air from the upper left down to the colder area on the lower right, but I'm not going to go there. In any case, as it stands there is a nice variety of temperatures to choose from both vertically and horizontally, all of which are within appropriate ranges and have choices of things to hide in, on, behind, around, etc.
At some point I might also make an insulating cover of some sort, like a quilt to cover the top, back, and sides; and maybe something for the bottom, too - again, to help insulate the whole thing for when the living room is 55 degrees. PVC insulates better than glass does, but heat still does escape through it!

Last thing is, I still need to make simple sliding panels to cover the ventilation holes with; I've been taping some plastic pieces to the outside, but that's sort of kludgy. The amount of ventilation really needs to be easily adjustable.