RHP size for PVC enclosures in cooler temp homes.

[CALM Pythons]

Ive been dealing with temp problems on my lower enclosure for a year now when the AC is on or the house cools at night during winter. Ive tried everything as most of you know from foam insulation board, sheet metal ect to help hold the heat in..
What I have learned. If your home is under 68 degrees and your enclosure is above 15"H ( T11/T12/T20 etc.. Mine are 24" H) then the recommended RHP's for a 4' enclose wont keep your hot spot 91 or your cool side 78-81. Ive tested this for months now changing everything around and the only thing that has solved it is the next size up RHP unless I put a blanket over the front Sliders. The reason I say this only pertains to over 15" hight enclosures is because people that have the T8 and T10 aren't having this issue at all I'm told. The 4 Sq Ft extra in hight makes a big difference in a room where AC is set to 65 degrees or winter night time temps drop to 60-62 which isn't unheard of in the states were we turn our heat down at night. I don't know about you but i cant sleep with 68-70 degree heat blowing on me at night and need AC 24/7 during summer.
Bob at pro products once again took care of what I needed. He didn't charge me any shipping for the replacement 110 watt panel and refunded the full amount of my previous 88 watt RHP when he received it. Cant beat that.
Anyway this now brings temps up to what I need when its cold (let the house drop to 60 to test it) and when the house warms to 70 during the day the RHP is running a lot less where the other one ran at 90/100% when it was 68-70 and then lost 5 -7 degrees when the house dropped to 60 at night.
Hopefully those people ordering larger enclosures will see this thread in the future to save them the hassle.
Ive talked to 2 different manufacturers of RHP's and they both were off on the size panel I needed for a 60-65 degree house.

[ckuhn003]

This is a good information. For someone who is expecting their 1st RHP this week (36 x 12 x 12 pvc enclosure) is it safe to say I can now lower my room temps to 65ish? Right now, I have my thermostat set to 82 to achieve ambients of 75 - 79ish. Meaning, I wasn't sure if there was a minimum room temp needed to enable to the RHP to do it's job.

[CALM Pythons]

This is a good information. For someone who is expecting their 1st RHP this week (36 x 12 x 12 pvc enclosure) is it safe to say I can now lower my room temps to 65ish? Right now, I have my thermostat set to 82 to achieve ambients of 75 - 79ish. Meaning, I wasn't sure if there was a minimum room temp needed to enable to the RHP to do it's job.

What size RHP did you order? 40 watt, 65 watt, 80, 100 ect?
I wouldn't order under a 60 watt unless you keep your home at 70 degrees 24/7 365.

What Thermostat is 82? Your house or Enclosure?

[ckuhn003]

What size RHP did you order? 40 watt, 65 watt, 80, 100 ect?
I wouldn't order under a 60 watt unless you keep your home at 70 degrees 24/7 365.

What Thermostat is 82? Your house or Enclosure?

I ordered a 50 watt panel (custom size) because it needs to be skinny enough to fit w/ the existing LED light panel which was installed in the pvc enclosure.

My basement thermostat is set to 82 which controls a wall unit which heats the room. My hopes were that I would be able to discontinue the use of this unit w/ the intro of the RHP (or at least set it to a much lower temp then 82).

Sounds like you think a 50 watt RHP might not do the trick??

[SDA]

I have an 80 watt for my 4 foot cage and a 40 watt for my 2 foot cage and the thermostat for both is placed directly under the RHP. For my terrestrial setup i use under tank heating to get the hot spot because it make no sense in a cooler house to expect radiant heating to handle that task. For my 2 foot arboreal setup I use the same thermostat setup but I only concern myself with the hot spot on the perch below the RHP. That is 1 degree warmer than the set thermostat temperature due to the way radiant heating works and how I have the thermostat set.

Both main vendors do the exact same thing so one will not work more efficiently than the other. You also can't expect to heat efficiently once the room temperature drops below a certain temperature no matter what you may think. You can safely keep the thermostat in the house set to 69 and expect your RHPs to handle their job provided you have properly built enclosures like those out of PVC but if you drop to say 65 or lower, no RHP is going to out pace the cold of the room and it will always heat to 100%

Think about it, 60 degrees is pretty cold and you are expecting a small radiant heat source to outpace a room that will stay at 60 degrees. If you keep your house that cold, insulate your enclosure better, don't go hog wild and over power it with a giant RHP, it won't do any good.

[ckuhn003]

I have an 80 watt for my 4 foot cage and a 40 watt for my 2 foot cage and the thermostat for both is placed directly under the RHP. For my terrestrial setup i use under tank heating to get the hot spot because it make no sense in a cooler house to expect radiant heating to handle that task. For my 2 foot arboreal setup I use the same thermostat setup but I only concern myself with the hot spot on the perch below the RHP. That is 1 degree warmer than the set thermostat temperature due to the way radiant heating works and how I have the thermostat set.

Both main vendors do the exact same thing so one will not work more efficiently than the other. You also can't expect to heat efficiently once the room temperature drops below a certain temperature no matter what you may think. You can safely keep the thermostat in the house set to 69 and expect your RHPs to handle their job provided you have properly built enclosures like those out of PVC but if you drop to say 65 or lower, no RHP is going to out pace the cold of the room and it will always heat to 100%

Think about it, 60 degrees is pretty cold and you are expecting a small radiant heat source to outpace a room that will stay at 60 degrees. If you keep your house that cold, insulate your enclosure better, don't go hog wild and over power it with a giant RHP, it won't do any good.

I was just wondering if there was a sweet spot to keep the 'room' thermostat at to make sure the RHP was doing it's job and that sounds like it's between 65 - 69.

Everything else you said makes sense except for the part about not to expect the RHP to handle the hot spot. Unless you're trying to say that there's not need to overwork the RHP if a UTH is available. I'm planning to continue to use mine.

[CALM Pythons]

I have an 80 watt for my 4 foot cage and a 40 watt for my 2 foot cage and the thermostat for both is placed directly under the RHP. For my terrestrial setup i use under tank heating to get the hot spot because it make no sense in a cooler house to expect radiant heating to handle that task. For my 2 foot arboreal setup I use the same thermostat setup but I only concern myself with the hot spot on the perch below the RHP. That is 1 degree warmer than the set thermostat temperature due to the way radiant heating works and how I have the thermostat set.

Both main vendors do the exact same thing so one will not work more efficiently than the other. You also can't expect to heat efficiently once the room temperature drops below a certain temperature no matter what you may think. You can safely keep the thermostat in the house set to 69 and expect your RHPs to handle their job provided you have properly built enclosures like those out of PVC but if you drop to say 65 or lower, no RHP is going to out pace the cold of the room and it will always heat to 100%

Think about it, 60 degrees is pretty cold and you are expecting a small radiant heat source to outpace a room that will stay at 60 degrees. If you keep your house that cold, insulate your enclosure better, don't go hog wild and over power it with a giant RHP, it won't do any good.

Im confused but i think you said that my personal findings with the new 110 watt panel are false? I explained the temps of my home ( Day & Night) and what I've done and how it now works.
I sent the 88 watt Panels back. Got the 110 watt and it has enough power to hold my temps at 60 degrees for the size enclosures i have.
Now as far as a arboreal setup or anything Higher than 2' id have no information on. My enclosures I'm speaking about are 2'x4'.

[CALM Pythons]

I ordered a 50 watt panel (custom size) because it needs to be skinny enough to fit w/ the existing LED light panel which was installed in the pvc enclosure.

My basement thermostat is set to 82 which controls a wall unit which heats the room. My hopes were that I would be able to discontinue the use of this unit w/ the intro of the RHP (or at least set it to a much lower temp then 82).

Sounds like you think a 50 watt RHP might not do the trick??

You will be able to set it to a lower temp yes. It will work fine during summer without AC on down there.. But during winter in a basement with that size RHP you will have to keep the basement id guess at 70.

[CALM Pythons]

I was just wondering if there was a sweet spot to keep the 'room' thermostat at to make sure the RHP was doing it's job and that sounds like it's between 65 - 69.

Everything else you said makes sense except for the part about not to expect the RHP to handle the hot spot. Unless you're trying to say that there's not need to overwork the RHP if a UTH is available. I'm planning to continue to use mine.

Idk what he is saying but all 3 of my enclosures use RHP only and yours only being 12" high will work great. Your ambient air may be cool on the cold side unless you keep your basement like you said around 68/70. You can play with that once you get it to dial in.