Soon to be new owner.

[JeffJ]

Thank you for the lovely debate. I am going to stick with my reptie-bark as it claims its safe, but when its time to change out in the future, I will switch to an aspen. Does aspen hold humidity better?
Is it bad my friend likes the extra hot under his rock?
Last question, is there a difference between dimmer and thermostat and is there any generic models I can buy at a home improvement store or something? I hate to spend 50 dollars at petco on a 1000watt model when my heat pad only pulls 24watts. but if thats the only option, then ill do it asap.

Aspen does a great job with humidity. ive never had a bad shed using it. only when i used sand (i know bad JeffJ, BAD)

you can get a lamp dimmer that will work on a heat pad just fine at lowes, Home Depot or any other place like that. a dimmer is like what it says. it dimms a lamp, (restricts current to the device) there for making the heat pad not run as hot.

a thermostat its a device with a temperature probe that monitors the temperature and either dimms or turns the heat source on and off as needed to keep the target temperature. the lamp dimmers are about $15 and 300W it will work just fine for nay heat pad and or lamp combo. just be sure nothing over 300W or it becomes a fire hazard as your overloading the potentiometer ion the dimmer.

as for the heat under the rock. its not uncommon for it to be a lil hotter in there as the cave will gather heat. if your friend stops using the cave its because its too hot. tone it down a few more degrees. and anything over 100*F can be potentially lethal or cause irreversible brain damage to the snake.