For a consistent gradient you really should only have 1 heat source; that being the UTH. The rest of the gradient is by keeping the room at an appropriate temperature. My suggestion is to just suck it up and get a space heater or something to raise the room temperature. If you raise the room temp then your ambient goes up. You don't have to raise room temp all the way to your target ambient in the enclosure, as the being enclosed with a UTH will raise it a bit.
For reference I'm in the same boat as you: I just naturally feel hot all the time (especially when sleeping), but I deal with it and our house is always either heated or cooled to roughly 78-79 degrees, which keeps all our snake's ambient temps right where they should be, cause of the slight raise I mentioned.
Edit: there needs to be some sort of regulation on your UTH as well, a quality thermostat is ideal but in a pinch a normal lamp dimmer or rheostat will suffice. If you measure a temp of 90 on your hot side on top of substrate then the UTH is probably in the range of 100 (if using aspen or any loose shredded substrate). If using paper towels or newspaper then it'd be a good bit lower but still regulating the heat source is critical.
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