Rethinking belly heat

[OhhWatALoser]

By keeping belly heat your allowed to have room temps 75-80. But when you start using back heat room temps will need to be higher to maintain any stable temp

I disagree.

First my room temp varies with the house temp, normally anywhere from low 70's to 80.

Belly heat worked fine for me until i switched from newspaper to substrate, then the substrate was screwing up my temps. I switched to back heat and temps have been spot on. Room temp never changed so i have to disagree with you.

I have had better results with back heat as far as temp control. Any difference with my animals...nope. Eating better or worse...nope. natural or not as far as i can tell they don't care, just do what works for you.

but what I think the op is talking about is no heat on the cage at all, which I talk to a person that does that and keep their room 80+. as already stated you might want to figure out the cost. but referring to the op again, i think they are doing it as reasons for fire safety

Well we all know thermostats can fail and flexwatt can have problems. but it is very rare. I ran a foot of 11 inch flex unregulated as a test, only got 150 degrees under a tub in my 80 degree room, not nearly hot enough to light anything on fire or melt it.....cause harm to an animal though, yes.

But looking at the other way, your thermostat on the room heater can also fail and so can that heater, nothing is 100% safe. the same event of failure we fear with flexwatt, the room heater might cause more damage since It would be effecting the entire collection.

so which risk is less?