Rack heat

[anti-]

I'm planning to build a small rack that can house some ball pythons and some colubrids. Usually with racks everyone uses heat tape, is there a reason why it's chosen over heat mats?

[JoshR324]

Usually it's more cost effective to use flexwatt over multiple UTHs

[anti-]

+ it's better to share a thermostat between various pieces of flexwatt than amongst different heat mats I guess?

[tweets_4611]

I know with my rack (Animal Plastics) you are able to run one piece of heat tape through the whole rack, and you don't have to worry about wiring several pieces. There are several companies that allow you to do that, as well as if you build your own. I like it b/c I only have the one cord to plug in, and I don't have to worry about all the extra wires.

Also, I think that the fact that heat tape lets you span as far as you want is another perk. If you want to heat the whole back side of the tub, you can. Whereas with a UTH they are set sizes and usually just heat one section, instead of the length of the tub or tank. You can have several tubs/tanks on one long strip of heat tape as well, even if you don't have a rack.