Sorry to hear about your loss. Shortly after getting my first BPs I heard of someone losing their whole collection due to heating issues. I only had 3 snakes, but knew I'd be getting more so the first thing I did was plan the heat out.
I have zone room heat (gas) at 78-80, then the racks are controled by double gang on/off t-stats set to 90-94F. I had my 1st double unit fail in the on position about 2 years back & the 2nd 1/2 did what it is designed to do, it shut the thing off. Snakes can handle 80 but continuous high temps will cook them.
If you're using a space heater, you may want to have a fan circulating the heat to prevent a thermal gradient from setting up in the room (especially important if you have high racks like I do). As long as your snakes have belly heat on a really good t-stat, room heat doesn't have to be to hot, at/above 72 will be fine. The temp alert devices mentioned in this thread are very good to have also.
Hope this may prove helpful to you & others who read your thread. No matter how good the equipment we use is, it can & will wear out/fail. So back-ups are necessary.
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