I personally only use ambient heat and so far have had a lot of success with it.
I use a switchable 1250/1500watt ceramic space heater controlled by a Ranco ETC 111000 set at 87° and circulate warm air via a ceiling fan to push warm air downward.
Everything in my room eats, poops and sheds without issue. All are active (except my balls obviously) and everything seems content.
Given a large enough water bowl even with ambient heat they can thermoregulate via soaking and evaporation. I have temp'd snakes as cool as 73° in a room that is 87°. Some of my species are more temperate than others so that is actually an acceptable temp for some of them.
Also naturally cooler weather species get the bottom tubs/enclosures and warmer species get higher up. The room stays pretty consistent from top to bottom but there is a 2-3° difference from the ceiling to the floor in the corners of the room.
The pros are:
-Less equipment to buy/setup/monitor/maintain
-less chance for a failure to go unnoticed
-as a whole it is safer(no direct heat sources immediately touching a tub/enclosure in case of a failure
-changes are as simple as setting one t-stat
-if you have an escape in a sealed heated room you don't have far to look and you know they will be alive and warm
-if you have to repair an enclosure it's as simple as placing the snake in any tub with no equipment to setup
Cons:
-Two pieces of equipment are responsible for keeping your entire collection alive
-harder to drop temps for breeding of individual pairs
-if there is a failure it happens to everything in your collection not just one tub/rack
-larger than normal water bowls "should" be used for the snakes comfort
Maternal incubation should be just fine as long as your ambient temps aren't too high. They can heat up a clutch through twitching but cannot cool them down.
Hope this helps a bit
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 3
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