I keep my apartment about 72-74 most of the time. I noticed that when I heat my flexwatt to where the floor of the tub is 95 degrees, that the 1 single layer of papertowel on top only measures 90. If i heat the tub to 100 degrees, the paper towel on top measures 95. When I check the actual snake temp, its usually within a few degrees of the substrate and not the tub floor.

Is this normal and safe? I'm planning to just heat the entire tub with 1 foot of 11 inch flexwatt and then just pile more papertowls on the cool end. If I can get this to heat the substrate to the proper temps, is that ok? My worry is that the snake will burrow down paste the substrate where the temps are closer to 100 and it will be too hot for them.