Quote Originally Posted by Lord Sorril View Post
So, I had the same question 'Why does the heat mat feel warm to my hand?'. The short answer is: Your core temperature is much different than your skin temperature. Your skin temperature is reliant upon a variety of factors including the temperature of your muscles, the ambient value of your environment, and the distance measured away from your core. For example: The skin on your hands and feet are almost always colder than your forehead.

My heat mats will also read a variety of values if directly measured. I try to place my thermostat probe in the center of the heat mat, and then check the values inside the enclosure instead of trying to bother with measuring the heating element itself.

I couldn't tell you how high the temperature needs to be to burn a snake: I haven't done it. Long before you reach a physical burn you can inflict nerve damage. If we are talking ball pythons: I can tell you from experience that they show signs of stress above 88F. I calibrate my thermostats so that my hot spots do not exceed 90F as a maximum. A hot spot it nice to have for digestion, but, is not needed if the ambient temperature is high enough.
Thanks for the explanation! That makes a lot of sense now. His ambient temperatures have never gotten above 85 and the surface above the substrate (paper towel) on his hot spot measures 90 max IF he’s not in his warm hide. I noticed that if he lays in his warm hide for some time and I take the temperature while he’s still there, then the temperature either reads too cold (80 at the most) or too hot (97-98). He’s never showed any signs of neurological damage or stress though (besides the stress he had when I just got him) and he uses both sides of the tub pretty equally. So the drastic difference in temperatures that my temp gun reads whenever he’s still laying on the hot spot is what made me question if my temp gun isn’t accurate or something.