Well the Hydrofarm has a safety switch of 108F. Once it reaches that it will shut down so I wouldn't worry about burning your snake. As for setting the temp, as long as you are 100% positive positive positive that the snake cant get under the carpet, then use the temp gun and turn the T-stat up a couple degrees until the temp gun reaches the temp you want on top. As a general rule though, you want the bottom of the tank closest to the UTH to be the place you read from as if a BP can dig down, it will dig down so you want the lowest and closest spot to be the hottest spot for safety. I actually quit using UTHs since I use aspen as my substrate and use about 2" deep so I just use a CHE as the only heat source for both my baby sunglow BCI and my BP. My big BCI is in a Pro-Line HDPE cage so I use a RHP with her which will be the same thing as soon as I have the spare cash to order 2 more PVC cages.
Oh you can test it also, just boil some water and use your temp gun to see when it gets up to 110F or so and then dip the probe in and see if the Hydrofarm turns off. I have never had to deal with an overheat on mine.
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