All of mine are in the basement. Our basement is semi-finished. It has a few walls up, not insulated or anything. I turned one of the rooms into my snake/rat room. I do heat it with a space heater in the winter, but otherwise there is no problem. Like the other person said, as long as you can keep the temps up in the enclosure that's all that matters. If you have to use a space heater in the winter it's no big deal.