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  1. #1
    BPnet Veteran wnateg's Avatar
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    Designing New Reptile Room (Water cycling and more)

    I am currently in the process of closing on my first house. I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch, but I need to start planning for the reptile room, as they will need to be moved first and foremost, and I would like to set everything up the right way first.

    So I got a 4 bedroom house with the intent of combining 2 of the bedrooms into one large reptile room. I've forgotten the measurements exactly, but I think with both rooms combined, it'd be around 11' x 22' maybe?

    Creating that means I'll be removing a wall. I also want to bring in water and waste lines. Luckily, the water heater is directly above those bedrooms, that makes water lines really easy to bring in. And they share a wall with the laundry room and master bath, I'll tie into those for the waste line.

    Though this thread will probably be a progress thread, I will be throwing out some questions.

    The first question in my mind is has anyone used a tankless heater like this? https://www.homedepot.com/p/Rheem-Pe...X-13/300800566

    I'm thinking I could have the water line coming into the room run through that, so if I cycle the water on my snapping turtle / caiman tanks (every few days), they're at the right temperature. That will remove the need for in tank heaters.

    I'm also wondering about climate controlling just this room to ~78-80. But I haven't delved into that much yet, and what the repercussions would be across the entire house. Maybe insulating the inside walls? A window unit? Not sure.

    Thanks for reading!
    Last edited by wnateg; 09-17-2020 at 05:23 PM.
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  2. #2
    BPnet Veteran Hugsplox's Avatar
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    Re: Designing New Reptile Room (Water cycling and more)

    Thought I'd offer an opinion from a construction stand point. I've done a little research on this myself, but also use to do residential framing, so have a little experience. I'm afraid I can't speak to the tankless water heat, BUT as far as the temps in just this room go, I would recommend just insulating the interior walls first, before dropping the case on any additional equipment.

    Depending on how many animals you have in that room, the temps from all their lights/heating pads/RHPs so on and so forth, should warm the room up on their own, and the insulation would hold it in. In all the research I did when I started looking into this, most people seem to heat their rooms to what they prefer the cool ends of their enclosures to be, and then let their heating elements warm the hot ends to whatever they need to be. I would think, if you have a lot of animals, you wouldn't have any issues keeping it 78-80. My office is relatively small, and I can tell you just be closing the air vent and keeping the door shut, my bearded dragon heat lamp running with the heat pads and CHEs for the other animals keeps it nice and toasty in here.

    There's also a youtuber I use to watch when I first got into keeping tropical fish. DIYKing if you're interested. He has an aquarium gallery, a separate building form his house, and instead of using individual tank heaters for eat tank, he just heats the entire building to whatever temps he needs, and because it's insulated it just holds everything in.

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  4. #3
    BPnet Veteran wnateg's Avatar
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    Yea, I know CHE's give off a lot of heat, but right now I'm only using RHPs.

    Though it is a good point. And it's also a good point because if I'm heating the room to 80, then I wouldn't need to heat the water to 80 really. Unless it's coming out of the tap really cold, I guess.
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  5. #4
    BPnet Veteran Hugsplox's Avatar
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    Re: Designing New Reptile Room (Water cycling and more)

    I guess it would depend what you're doing with the water. Like using it to change out water in fish tanks and amphibian enclosures, probably a good idea to go ahead and run lines from the heater, but if you're just looking at having a sink to refill water dishes with I don't think it would matter. Although, and I know this isn't specifically for reptiles, but I have a Python Water Changing system for my fish tanks. It sockets into almost any faucet from any sink and has a hose that runs 20-30 feet (I think.) Super inexpensive and could save you a few dollars on piping if you don't mind hooking it up anytime you need to bring water into the room. I don't see why it couldn't work for a reptile room just to bring water in, plus you can syphon water out with it as well. Just a thought if you're budgeting this build.

    I'm not sure about your heating issue though. Maybe spending a little extra on a fancy space heater that has a build in T-stat? I think it's doable, and I feel like it may not be as expensive as most people think it is, especially since you're planning ahead. Plus if you insulate that room, I don't think the heater would have to run THAT much, and since the heat isn't escaping your air in the rest of the house wouldn't have to run more to compensate for this random hot air. Should save you some monthly expense on your light bill.



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  7. #5
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    In wall electric heater. Runs on a thermostat. Biggest pain is you need to put it on a dedicated line/breaker. I use one in my snake room, along with a small fan for air movement, and my room stays 77°. Comes with a metal box the heater sits in, box doesn’t get hot.

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    wnateg (09-23-2020)

  9. #6
    BPnet Veteran Hugsplox's Avatar
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    Re: Designing New Reptile Room (Water cycling and more)

    Quote Originally Posted by Waterman View Post
    In wall electric heater. Runs on a thermostat. Biggest pain is you need to put it on a dedicated line/breaker. I use one in my snake room, along with a small fan for air movement, and my room stays 77°. Comes with a metal box the heater sits in, box doesn’t get hot.
    This is a really good idea, I didn't even think about the in wall electric heaters. They're not incredibly expensive, and if you insulate the room it shouldn't run all the time, so your light bill won't be crazy.

  10. #7
    BPnet Veteran Dianne's Avatar
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    Re: Designing New Reptile Room (Water cycling and more)

    I live in an old house (1945), and used the room between my bedroom and bathroom as my snake room (roughly 11’ x 11’). For most of the year the room stays mid-70’s, which works for the range of species i have. Even in the winter, it rarely drops below 72F. For especially cold nights in the winter, I have one of the oil filled radiator space heaters. Works very well to give the slight bump in temp I need.
    Other Snakes:
    Hudson 1988 1.0 Colombian rainbow; Yang 2002 1.0 Corn snake; Merlin 2000 1.0 Solomon Island ground boa; Kett 2015 1.0 Diamond Jungle Jaguar carpet python; Dakota 2014 0.0.1 Children’s python

    Ball pythons:
    Eli 1990 1.0 Normal; Buttercup 2015 1.0 Albino; Artemis 2015 0.1 Dragonfly; Orion 2015 1.0 Banana Pinstripe; Button 2018 1.0 Blue Eyed Lucy; Piper 2018 0.1 Piebald; Belle 2018 0.1 Lemonblast; Sabrina 2017 0.1 Mojave; Selene 2017 0.1 Banana Mojave; Loki 2018 1.0 Pastel Mystic Potion; Cuervo 2018 1.0 Banana Piebald; Claude 2017 1.0 Albino Pastel Spider; Penelope 2016 0.1 Lesser

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  12. #8
    BPnet Veteran wnateg's Avatar
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    Re: Designing New Reptile Room (Water cycling and more)

    Quote Originally Posted by Dianne View Post
    I live in an old house (1945), and used the room between my bedroom and bathroom as my snake room (roughly 11’ x 11’). For most of the year the room stays mid-70’s, which works for the range of species i have. Even in the winter, it rarely drops below 72F. For especially cold nights in the winter, I have one of the oil filled radiator space heaters. Works very well to give the slight bump in temp I need.
    Where I used to live, I had a kerosene heater in my bedroom. I always slept with one eye open scared that it would malfunction and suffocate me with carbon monoxide.

    I'm not saying that is anything near reality, but they just freak me out lol
    Last edited by wnateg; 09-25-2020 at 07:53 PM.
    Start your own dubia roach colony with Roach Rancher!

    Instagram - @AliceAnaconda

    0.1.0 Cat "Anna"
    -----
    1.1.0 Emerald Tree Boa "Amanda & Samantha"
    0.1.0 Merauke Scrub Python "Victoria"
    0.1.0 Titanium Reticulated Python "Alice"
    1.0.0 Eastern Indigo
    -----
    0.0.4 Alligator Snapping Turtle "Deborah"
    0.0.2 Florida Snapping Turtles
    0.0.1 Cuvier's Dwarf Caiman "Caroline"
    0.0.1 100% Het Black Dragon Asian Water Monitor
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    0.0.1 Antilles Pink Toe Tarantula "Katherine"

  13. #9
    BPnet Veteran Dianne's Avatar
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    Re: Designing New Reptile Room (Water cycling and more)

    Quote Originally Posted by wnateg View Post
    Where I used to live, I had a kerosene heater in my bedroom. I always slept with one eye open scared that it would malfunction and suffocate me with carbon monoxide.

    I'm not saying that is anything near reality, but they just freak me out lol
    I hear you! We used to have one when i was growing up. Hated the way it smelled and never really trusted it when i was older. Give me my electric heaters any day.
    Other Snakes:
    Hudson 1988 1.0 Colombian rainbow; Yang 2002 1.0 Corn snake; Merlin 2000 1.0 Solomon Island ground boa; Kett 2015 1.0 Diamond Jungle Jaguar carpet python; Dakota 2014 0.0.1 Children’s python

    Ball pythons:
    Eli 1990 1.0 Normal; Buttercup 2015 1.0 Albino; Artemis 2015 0.1 Dragonfly; Orion 2015 1.0 Banana Pinstripe; Button 2018 1.0 Blue Eyed Lucy; Piper 2018 0.1 Piebald; Belle 2018 0.1 Lemonblast; Sabrina 2017 0.1 Mojave; Selene 2017 0.1 Banana Mojave; Loki 2018 1.0 Pastel Mystic Potion; Cuervo 2018 1.0 Banana Piebald; Claude 2017 1.0 Albino Pastel Spider; Penelope 2016 0.1 Lesser

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  15. #10
    BPnet Veteran Hugsplox's Avatar
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    Re: Designing New Reptile Room (Water cycling and more)

    Quote Originally Posted by Dianne View Post
    I hear you! We used to have one when i was growing up. Hated the way it smelled and never really trusted it when I was older. Give me my electric heaters any day.
    Same on the electric heaters. I grew up super low income and we had one of those old school gas furnaces in a single wide trailer that you had to light the pilot light on every winter. I always thought it was going to explode, so when I got older got married and all that jazz we bought total electric lol.

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