Need help with temperatures

[nighttrain_1991]

Fellow newbie here and I have the same set up a 40 gal critter cage. And I suffer from temp and humidity problems as well. I live in Michigan so it's 30 degrees or less right now and other than when I'm at work in the summer my house is rarely over 70. The uths just haven't worked for me. At first I had it on full without a thermostat and when I took surface temps with an IR gun I was getting 90-95 so I thought I was good. After reading through several posts here I checked the temps at the glass with no substrate and found they were 130+. Now I've never seen my snake burrow but didn't want to take the risk. Once I got my 500R thermostat I hooked it up to the uth and when set to 90 it didn't raise temp at all on the substrate. Even cranked all the way up, about 110, it wouldn't get it up to 80. Currently I have a 150 watt che on the hot side hooked to the thermostat and a 100 watt che on the cool side that stay on all the time. This is the best system I have come up with so far, but it is far from perfect, not super consistent and requires a lot of maintenance. I keep the rest of the screen top covered with damp towels to maintain humidity. As I'm sure you are aware it's a pain to move everything whenever you want to get into the tank.

Now believe me I know how much money you've got invested as I've got more bulbs and other things floating around then I know what to do with in my failed attempts to get conditions right. I have not gotten one yet (should be ordering this weekend), but what I would reccommend is that you look at the animalplastics.com site at the T-8 enclosure. Yes, it's going to cost you some money up front, but ultimately I think it will save you money and most definitely aggravation. Using the divider you can house both snakes in one enclosure and it will be a much cleaner look since you won't have all the clutter on top. The front sliding doors make access easier. There are several threads on here about the enclosure that you can check out. You can heat using flex watt heat tape or radiant heat panels (RHPs) or a combo depending on your needs. From what I've heard the people there are great to deal with. If you call them and describe your conditions I'm sure they can reccommend the ideal set up. The critter cages are nice, and I think they would work great for desert species like bearded dragons or leopard geckos and the like, but they are not well suited for bps. You could repurpose them or probably sell them on craigslist to recoup some of your loss. In the long run, remeber bps live 30+years, I think the T-8 will be more economical to maintain. Just my two scents from a fellow newbie. Good luck.