So, its been quite cold here where I live in southwestern Virginia. The house I'm living in is well over a hundred years old and has beautiful high ceilings. Now, heat being what it is, I usually have to use a fan to circulate the air in the living room where the snakes are to bring the warm air down and keep the ambient temp in the room up. I am using an UTH (on a thermostat) and two CHE's per terrarium -- one 100 watts and one 60 watts. These are both on in-line dimmers. Usually, I put the 60 watt CHE on the cool side during winter but, this winter I've been forced to put them both on the warm side.

The CHEs in both cages are running maxed out in both cages and my Thermostat is set on 93 for the UTH in both cages. Yet, because it's been so cold I've been struggling to keep the ambient temps in a healthy range (I do check every few hours using an infrared thermometer). I was looking for ways to safely increase the ambient temps in the terrariums when I though of the two ceramic tower heaters i had for when I'm visited by relatives from the south that freeze when the temps get below 60°. I put them underneath the terrarium stands and set the thermostats on them and, viola! I was getting the ambient temps where I wanted them. They're about a foot below the bottom of the terrarium so I believe they'll be safe.

NOW THE PROBLEM . . On Saturday it was really cold outside and my furnace was struggling mightily to keep the house warm. I was getting ready to run some errands and decided to put the setting of both heaters on high. I ran my errands and, on my return, found everything as it should be Then I decided to watch the football playoffs. I turned my TV on and, with 30 minutes, POP! -- the TV stopped working. The plug for the TV set AND the plug for one of my terrariums stopped working. Yep, you guessed it, a flipped circuit-breaker. I went down into the cellar and popped it back on. When I went back upstairs, everything was on again. Back to the playoff game and, again, within fifteen minutes, POP! -- the same two plugs went off again. After a few minutes of deductive reasoning, I turned both of the ceramic heaters off. I would far rather one of my snakes be a little chilly overnight than to freeze because of a flipped circuit breaker. Fortunately, there were no further problems that night.

Today is Monday and there hasn't been a recurrence of the "breaker" problem. I've actually started to use the heaters again (on the low setting). For the past nine hours there hasn't been a problem. The snakes seem content. Unfortunately, I haven't the nerve to use them at night when I'm sleeping or when I'll be away from home for an extended period. I don't want to put the snakes in a position where I would not be aware of the problem much less be able to fix it. I suspect that it had something to do with the draw of the heaters on the high setting (1500 watts on high as opposed to 900 watts on low). I sure wish I had the electrical training to know how to safely address this situation.

Sorry for the length of the post but I suspect that I'm not the only one living in a very old home in a very cold climate. I'm not sure if this is the right place to put this post. If it's not the right place, please feel free to move it to the proper place.

<><Peace