I strongly recommend testing UVB output with a meter (Solarmeter 6.5R), especially for animals that (a) don't actually use UVB to manufacture D3 (BPs), and (b) may not self-regulate exposure, or at least not effectively in normal captive conditions (BPs might be reasonably expected to self-regulate body temp and moisture level before UVB exposure). I was overirradiating all my animals that I was providing UVB (and causing behavior/feeding problems in my group of box turtles, and one death of a gecko) before I got a meter; those nice charts online are rough estimates of specific applications and don't take into account the efficiency of various reflectors, the power factor of various ballasts, the penetration through each kind of screen, angle of irradiance, etc. The UVI recommendation (~ 0.7) for animals like BPs is hard to hit and easy to overshoot, IME.
Lamps absolutely need to be untouchable by the snake both for burn prevention (T5HO can easily get hot enough to burn) as well as breakage prevention. Broken florescent lamps are a nightmare of glass slivers and mercury.
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