Quote Originally Posted by DamienF View Post
I already tried aspen, but it doesn't make a lot of difference.

Actually my thermostat also tells me the current temperature, so I only put this one. But I think I'm going to try like you said, and adjust the thermostat to get the right temp on the substrate. It'll make a really thin layer, I hope is ok.

And, just to know, has anyone tried not putting any substrate at all ? Just the snake laying on the glass ? Maybe it doesn't make a big difference with newspaper, as soon as it's hot enough...
Just asking, I won't do that.
If I understand you correctly that means your using the thermostat probe to measure temps INSIDE the cage rather than directly on the heat source.

That is NOT what the t-stat was built to do. It will shorten the lifespan of the UTH as well as if water or urates gets on your t-stat probe, the temperatures will spike- cooking your snake.
Use the T-stat probe directly taped to the UTH and a separate thermometer probe in the enclosure.

If the UTH has to be up to 105 to get the lowest temperature of 92 in the cage, then theres not a whole lot of problems with that. My t-stat reads 104 and gets temperatures perfect on the inside of the enclosure.