You want to take the UTH reading from the glass with the temp gun. not the top of the substrate for the the exact reason they burrow. My girl pushes all her aspen out of her warm hide and just likes to sit on the glass directly above the UTH. 11x11 is fine. I use a 17x11 Flukers in my 36x18 tank and its fine. I would use some sort of heat bulb regardless as UTH only heat the bottom, not the air. I use a 100 watt CHE on a lamp dimmer for said cage and it sits around 81-83f cold side and 84-86f warm side. I also got a CHE on my beardie at night as well set to 80f with the room temp being 75f.
As for insulation, you can use stuff like http://www.homedepot.com/p/R-Tech-1-...0876/202524156. This is what I used to insulate the bottom of my red tail boa cage during really cold winters. You can also cut a thick piece of cardboard the same size as the top of the cage and then wrap it in tin foil. Then cut a circle out for the heat lamp dome. I cut about an inch bigger than the dome. That will keep humidity and heat in as well.
As for UVB, they will benefit from it but its not needed. Just take him outside during the summer for a little bit. I take my boa and beardie outside during the summer and let them hang out on me. My beardie hates it unless she is sitting on me, shes a chicken. My boa loves it and tries to climb on anything she can get near like a railing, a tree, trying to get on the roof when im on the back deck. I personally don't use UVB tubes on my snakes. My beardie I use a T5. Unless you got a setup for it, I probably wouldn't go out of my way to set up UVB. My ball python doesn't even have cage lighting, she just gets all her lighting from the room lights and my beardies lights.
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