Hello!

I want to thank everyone who replied to my previous enclosure post and any who contribute to this one. As I stated back then, we are slowly upgrading all our snakes to larger bioactive vivariums. I love hands on projects and was open to building, but quality and comfort for our critters was priority #1. Through my research, I hadn't found any builds that were the quality we want for a price below pre-built so we have been planning and saving for Animal Plastics vivs for adult enclosures and are happy to follow through on that.

That stated, I am always open to creativity and have loved learning from other's experiences how different materials behave. I had a new idea today and was curious if anyone's experience could contribute!

The biggest reason my family decided wooden enclosures weren't right for us was reading about warping. We keep primarily ball pythons, we live in a rainy humid climate with large temperature fluctuations, and we want these enclosures to last as long as possible. Ideally outliving their occupants and perhaps even us. I wasn't able to find examples of wooden vivs still unwarped and solid 10, 15, 20+ years into operation, and this project is a big one that I am not looking to redo in 2-5 years.

I asked in my last caging post about some creative lining ideas and those who responded were super helpful in sharing the limitations they have faced with those materials. It has been great info to have even outside enclosures! I caught myself wondering today about glass. More specifically, scrap glass.

In my area there are a number of places that offer scrap windows from old buildings or demolition for very cheap, sometimes free. I wouldn't have control over thickness or size, but was curious if smaller panes could be pieced together to effectively line and waterproof a wooden viv? I read in another forum the limitations of piecing glass together like this to serve as a whole tank due to the weight of water or soil, but wondered if with wood outside to provide the structural power things might be different?

This is all hypothetical, just curious if there could be an opportunity there to upcycle some of my community's scrap. Thank you to all the handy people helping me learn more about how these materials behave!