The human heating pad may heat it up enough, depending on your ambient temperatures. I don't have any problems maintaining temps in mine. If you use a reptile heat mat, you really should use a thermostat or rheostat or dimmer switch with it for safety purposes because they get so hot. If you use a soldering iron, it's almost as easy to melt the plastic as it is to get clumsy and burn yourself. It's even easier to spend a couple of bucks on 4" cable ties at Home Depot and just poke holes in the plastic then zip those through to secure the mesh.