Herpstat Not Heating Enough . . .

[SnakeGirl3]

Ok so heres what you do, don't open your incubator in the middle of a snow storm, Nor should you try to incubate your eggs in an open room with a zippo.

I don't see why everyone thinks you need more heat, 11 inch is 20 watts a foot right? I'm using a 10 watt heater in my 70 qt cooler incubator, i know yours is bigger but still, you got twice the heat.. I open it, check on things, close it it drops about 5 degrees, in about a minute or 2 its back to temp. water works wonders.

Test it, open it it long enough to check on all your tubs and see how long it takes to get back up to temp. If it reasonable, your fine.

I opened the door for five minutes, temps dropped 2 degrees in each tub. It took about 10-15 minutes for the tubs to get back to their previous temp. Also, even if I had eggs in there I was actually checking on, I probably wouldn't leave the door open while I check. In addition to not being able to open the tubs until I remove them (not enough space between shelves), I would probably take out each tub individually, close the door, check them, and replace them in the incubator. Plus, since the door is glass, I can see some things without even opening the door. Humidity I couldn't check in this manner, but I can visually check for dented eggs, wet spots on eggs, etc. without having to open the door.

Its not "more heat".......... Its more heated area
I'm just throwing in my but I would rather see it built correctly rather than read the new post next spring. "What did I do wrong??"
I may not have had a clutch hit the ground yet but I do know DIY. If I see it I can build it, AND improve on it.

Unless you cooler is 1 cubic foot you can fit a 3' piece in there, Top, back an bottom

Believe me, I have been using hova bators in years past. Those are highly dependent upon room temp, and their thermostats are nowhere near as good as this one. So even a slight drop in temp in this one I don't think is going to be as big as ones I've had previously, but still managed to have a 100% hatch rate of healthy babies.

As for being able to fit 3' of flexwatt in there, I don't want flexwatt on the bottom of the incubator. Since I have a tub sitting directly on the floor, I don't want them to come in contact directly with the heat source. I could, however, start above the bottom "lip" (area where I now have the fan and water bottle sitting) and go up the back and across the ceiling--not sure if 3' would fit there, but I suppose it might. So far, so good though. It doesn't seem to be taking very long for the temps to stablize even if the door has been opened.