I made a massive mistake...

[Hugsplox]

Kind of figured as much. It's a tentative time figuring out where expenses are going to be allocated in what order once I get some things sold off. I'd love to get the T10 ordered just so it's in the queue already but it's a LARGE chunk of money to drop all at once. But it will probably be the first thing I do anyway because I really need to place the order as the wait's probably going to be a year+ at this point with how production's been slammed.

It's not a year plus to get a AP enclosure. It isn't quick, but it's not over a year. Mine got here in 7 months, and while that may seem like a long time, cutting corners and trying to get something comparable quicker isn't going to solve your enclosure debacle you're dealing with. That being said, you DO NOT HAVE to order a AP enclosure. I kept my BP in a glass tank for almost a year, and could have kept doing it, everything was fine, I just wanted the convenience of a PVC enclosure for the humidity. All of my other animals are in glass tanks, there's no reason, if you can't afford it, for you to think AP is your only option. On that same note, there's zero reason that AP should be the only vendor you look at if you for sure want a PVC enclosure. Plenty of other vendors have been mentioned multiple times, all over the forum.

Going back to what Bogertophis said, you need to have extras of everything. Realistically, something is going to break, and in my experience things break at the worst possible times. For example, couple of weeks back, the heat bulb in my quarantine tank went out at about 10:30 on a Tuesday night. We had a cold snap that night and it got down into the very low 70s in the room where the tank was, and while it probably wouldn't have hurt the snake, I fortunately had a spare bulbs. I have spare heat mats, fixtures, bulbs, substrate, I mean you name it I have at least 2 as backups for all my enclosures. Having extra equipment is right there with having some funds saved for emergency vet care if/when it's needed.

The question "do you need another set of heating equipment" you HAVE to set a new enclosure up and let it run for a few days to make sure you gradient is right, that your temps and humidity are right, etc etc. You can't, I mean you can but personally I think it's poor practice, just stick the snake in a brand new untested enclosure and expect not to have issues.