This would be a fun thing to test. If I had a room full of reptiles I would. I only have one rack so you could do the math on it.
11" heat tape is 20 watts per foot.
Let's say you have 6 racks 6 foot tall back heat that's 6ftx6 racks
36ftx20 watts per foot
720 watts total
Let's say you have 10 4ft cages with 2 ft heat tape each that's 20ft
20x20 is 400 watts
Let's say your running a hot spot light bulb to keep ambient up in 4 ft cages so you have 10 60watt bulbs running
So you have 600+400+720=1720
We will put 1720 in the watts to kWh calculator
1.72 kWh/hour of it being on so let's say that you burn that 15 hours a day 25.8 kWh per day nation wide average is 12 cents per 1 kWh
$3.10 per day running that exact set up.
So most space heaters are 800 watt or 1200watt since I'm estimating high let's say you live in the north and your house is average for insulation. The heater will probably kick on for 15 mins ever hour so lets say 30 for 12 hours at night
15x12= 180 min/60 is 3 hours
30x12 = 360min/60=6hours
So it's running 9 hours a day let's go high and say it runs 12 hours a day
1200 watts is 1.2 kWh 1.2x12=14.4
14.4kwh per day
14.4x12 cents
$1.73 per day is what you would spend estimated
The numbers say it's cheaper to heat a room than to heat a ton of cages.
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