Thermostat questions

[Jess Jones]

I am looking to purchase my first thermostat a Vivarium Electronics VE-300 for my cages and have a stack of Boaphile cages. There is the pedestal and 5 421T's with a regular 421 in stack. I'd like to put in 6 48" strips of 6" heat tape. When hooking it all up to the thermostat can I use a six strip to hook all the heat tape plugs into the thermostat?

Also will the 6" be enough ? I thought about using the 12" but thought in a cage that is only 24" deep that having half would be to much.

[KMG]

You can hook up a tstat that way but you have to make sure you stay within the tstat limits.

If it is enough I could only guess. That will depend heavily on the temp of the room. If the room is cooler you may need a second heat source. Many of us with snake rooms use a oil filled heater to heat the entire room.

[Jess Jones]

Thanks. The room remains a standard temp of about 70 to 75 degrees. I figured by going with the VE-300 it has a wattage of 700 watts and doing the math I'm going with 6 strips of 6" heat tape at 4' lengths. So I am going to be using 24' of heat tape and the 6" tape is rated at 12 watts per foot giving me a total of 288 watts. I would assume that by only using less than half of what the thermostat is rated for will help keep it running smoother for longer.

Am I correct in the way I am thinking? I just want to make sure I am doing this correctly and the best I can do for my reptiles.

[KMG]

I'm not gonna say the tstat will last longer as anything can happen. But having a load of half its max will keep the tstat in a good range and should work well.