Heat tape big enough?

[Bogertophis]

Thank you

My room is always above 70f.. An always ranges between 70 and 80.

I was under the impression that for the most part heat tape only heats what it comes into contact with or very close to that. My thinking was maybe 3 inch tape would heat around 5 inch witdh and then some ambient temp increase as heat rises.

I definitely didn't think that if say my room was 80f ambient and I use some 3 inch that it would create a spot big enough for an adult ball coiled.

Just surprised me ��

70*-80* pretty much describes my house (winter to summer, home HVAC t-stat settings) which is great for me & what I keep- mostly colubrids, & only one snake (spotted python) that needs warmth more similar to a BP. So I'd say that you'd need wider heat tape for BPs. (But for safety, you never heat the whole "floor" either- preferably never more than half at the most. Most of my snakes have about 1/6th of the floor heated.)

Heat rises, no matter whether it's heat tape or any other kind of heating device, but heat tape is thin & low wattage, so it's not strong enough to overcome a lot of cold or a lot of air space. Just keep that in mind. You'll need to test things out for your purposes, as it's much different from mine. I use heat tape under glass tanks to create tummy warmth for my snakes- it works great, but it's not intended to heat all the air in the glass tanks above it, though a proportionally-greater amount of heat tape PLUS overhead heat does a credible job of warming my spotted python's home. If you do some insulation, that makes a big difference too. Every home, every room, every snake enclosure is different, & requires tweaking to suit the occupant.