Quote Originally Posted by Deborah View Post
Always?

Do you have experience with keeping your animals at room temps with no hot spot?

Did you know that the Barker kept their collection like this?

Did you know that if you have a number large enough this method might actually be cost efficient?

Did you know that sometimes keeping the animals at room temps actually involve no cost at all?

Now to the OP

While I generally do not recommend this method to new owners that are getting started, I however will not hesitate to discuss it with people that want to experiment and learn about "alternative" husbandry methods.

First let me start that I live in the south and that my snake room is located right under my roof (spare room above the garage), during the winter my snake room is heated at 75 and a hot spot of 88 degrees is provided to my BP, during the warm months however everything is turned off (oil filled heater and heat tape), because of it's location the room gets around 85/87 degrees during the day and therefore I have no cost from May to September.

Of course I could cool the room to 75 and have a hot spot of 88 but it would not make much sense, it would be counter productive and not very energy efficient.

As far as my collection I have done this for 5 years straight now since moving to my new house, all snakes are healthy, stress free, eating and breeding, so I think that tells a lot.
Do you mean you unplug the racks from the thermostats? If so is there a setting to only monitor the probe and not "attempt" to route power to whatever is plugged into the thermostat? If not I wonder if it trying to route power to the plugged devices actually draws any power?