Cage insulation, aka velcro snake blanket

[Coluber42]

Now that it's getting cold out and the living room is getting cold too, my new enclosure has been having a harder time keeping the temps where they should be, especially in the corners and edges. It actually has been mostly OK, but better insulation helps keep the temperatures more even without those cold corners, and requires less wattage to do it. So I made insulating covers for the top, back, and sides with a short curtain over the front that should at least trap some of the warm air that escapes through the sliding doors up top.



The top cover is canvas on top and fleece underneath, encasing a piece of 1/4" foam. The side panels are canvas on both sides with two layers of fleece in between, and are held in place with velcro. The back is also canvas, fleece, and foam and held on with velcro. For the velcro panels, I used adhesive velcro on the sides of the cage and sew-on velcro on the insulation panels.

Underneath the side panels are the ventilation holes, which have sliding styrene panels over them in order to cover and uncover them as needed to increase or reduce ventilation/humidity:



The insulation panels can be partially "peeled" away to expose these, or they can be removed entirely.

The entire enclosure is also sitting on top of a piece of foam, which I think should insulate the bottom of it a little better. So far, it seems to be working very well - the RHP is running noticeably less, at least.

One change I might possibly make is that I might make a full-length curtain for the front instead of the little short one, that we can just roll up when we don't need it. That might also be good for when we have guests staying in the living room and there's more commotion and lights on late at night than usual. And we could close it during the day, when the thermostat in the house is set to its lowest. But I might be too lazy, since I don't think it's strictly necessary.