heat lights vs. household light bulbs

[Pia]

Does anyone know the difference between heat lights from a pet store and regular household light bulbs?

[Zoe]

Some pet store heat lights are infrared, so they only produce heat, and no light. Usually they are a different shape, and make more heat than a normal bulb. Household bulbs are your typical, pear-shaped white things that you can 10,25,40,70,100 etc watt. They produce heat too, but not as much, and some of the lower wattages produce almost none.

Zoe

[BOAS_N_PYTHONS]

PIA:

I agree with ZOE. I use 14 inch flourescents for light only , my heat source is radiant heat panels.

Cya...

Tony

[T.O-SK8TER]

Ceramic bulbs are infrared and gives off what is called radiant heat and the heat will spread out more than a simple light bulb and these bulbs last up to 5 years and the zoo med ones come with a one year warranty, I have a bunch of these ones. At the pet stoe you can get light bulbs that do give off infrared aswell. I use normal lights (not from a pet store) in a reflector and runned on a timer with the ceramic ones to give the day and night time effects and temperatures.

[Bryce Masuk]

The difference between the normal bulbs at the petstore and the ones at home depot are the pet store ones burn out faster and they have some stupid coating on them that does jack all and of course the price

ceramic bulbs are poo IMO they dont project heat for a far distance they use more power to maek teh same heat as a heat pad they Dry the air in the tank (it can be good or bad pending the animal)
Heat pads are much better then ceramics imo

[NewLineReptile]

I agree with Bryce

Brandon

[Zoe]

Well Bryce that depends on what animal you are providing heat for. For a snake, yes you'd be better off with a UTH. But for many lizards that need overhead light, a CHE or other heat bulbs are better.

Also, a good heat light won't burn out as quickly as a normal bulb (which tend to fry pretty quick if you keep them on 12hr/day). That coating is the "blur" the light, so it isn't as bright if you look directly into it.

Zoe

[Bryce Masuk]

I have found that all of the petstore bulbs have burned out in about a month with various brands zoomed exoterra ....
You can get the same type of coating in a house bulb except its called "frosting" you can also get 10000 hour bulbs at rona if you dont want to change them often

I should have said with all ground dwelling species if the heat pad is used only at night and light bulbs are used in the day
For arboreal species radiant panal's are better then ceramic bulbs in everyway

[Pia]

Thanks all.

[Lisa]

most light bulbs give off too much heat for our purpose, so we use 13w flurecent screw in bulb.

[burmer]

I've used halogen flood lights to create a basking spot for my monitor, it's worked well so far.

[LISA127]

As long as my animal has a good quality UVB/UVA flourescent tube, I often use regular everyday household bulbs for heat. It works well for most lizards. The only one I had to use a focused basking spot bulb with was the uromastyx. The regular bulb was not strong enough for her.

[XxRachxX]

household bulbs blind you!!! XD ouch
pets store ones dont! lol

[Invictus]

A buddy of mine uses 40 watt light bulbs in his melamine enclosures, and he is able to get the ambient heat up around 95 with them. They get pretty darn hot. :)

[Bartman]

i only use household bulbs. First off they last much longer than petstore ones. Second i am also able to get all my temps up to the exact i need with no problems..as invictus said they are sometimes too hot and i need to raise the fixture or reduce the wattage of the bulb. I find them great. I had the petstore ones and in like a month the threaded part that goes into the fixture always detaches from the bulb because it gets very hot. But with these bulbs i only have to change them once in a while.