Human Heating Pads

[GreenNeutron]

I've heard a lot of people saying that they use these to heat reptile enclosures. I've got a few main questions: How would you go about hooking one of these up to a thermostat, and where would you find one without the autoshutoff mechanism? I've looked at a few drug stores/walmart etc. and have yet to see one that doesn't have this safety feature.

[HetForHuman]

WalMart has the ones with and without the automatic shut off.

The boxes damn near look identical so you just have to double check to make sure.

The ones i buy from WalMart are the SUNBEAM brand..

[MouseKilla]

I use Sunbeam ones as well and was able to avoid evil Walmart by going to Canadian tire, but whatever.

I've found that they don't need any extra control than the switch that's already on them though others may disagree with me. As long as you heat from OUTSIDE the cage you should be able to maintain a safe range of temperatures on either the LOW or MED settings with some tinkering with the amount of space/airflow between the bottom of the cage and the pad itself or even depth of the substrate. It depends on how much you are concerned with having totally precise temps. Personally I am able to maintain a hotspot between 90 - 100 F with it sitting at 93-96 most of the time with no extra controls and I'm happy with that. As I said, some people can't sleep if it fluctuates by more than 2 degrees, I'm just not one of them.

[justinO]

I use mostly human heating pads....... mainly because they do come with their own temp control.
I have Sunbeam & Dunlap about 4 of each...... they work great, some work better than others though..... I usually get them from Wal-mart

I also like them cuz they are totally contained and I don't have to worry about them shorting out if water gets on them and I can even clean them.

Over the last year, both companies have introduced the auto shut of feature which sent me on a mission to find the ones left that don't. I think eventually they will all switch over to a max of 2 hours on, which is a HUGE pain in the ***.

When I was in the U.S. they seemed to have all the old ones without the auto shut off in a dark corner behind the pharmacy counter collecting dust, I could kick myself for only buying one at the time.

I have one of the heat tape reptile type pads, WAY more expensive and had to buy the dimmer for $20 (thanks for the tip, i'll get the $9 from ikea now!!!) from home depot to control temps.... so unless I go to a rack system or whatever, human heating pads work just fine!

[Linds]

Originally posted by MouseKilla
I've found that they don't need any extra control than the switch that's already on them though others may disagree with me. As long as you heat from OUTSIDE the cage you should be able to maintain a safe range of temperatures

With the exception that they weren't designed to be left on 24/7.... :firestart

[MouseKilla]

Linds,

Well I admittedly don't know what makes such a thing "designed" to be run constantly. As I said at the top of this thread though, I don't have any information leading me to think that any of the stuff that is marketed for reptiles is any safer.

If you look at a human heat pad under a light you can see that inside there is a flexible element of some kind that looks an awful lot like 11" FlexWatt. Coincidence?

It's all CSA/UL approved either way you go and you're dealing with relatively low temperatures. Not many things I'm aware of suddenly ignite at 100 F. It seems to me that it couldn't be any more dangerous than using light bulbs or ceramic emitters that get a whole lot hotter (bulbs especially!).

The only electrical fires I have ever heard of or read about in the paper all stemmed from doing obviously stupid things like piggybacking extention cords or half-assed home wiring jobs. I'm honestly a lot more concerned about the tangled nest of cables and wires crammed behind my TV and stereo cabinet.

I would be interested in seeing some technical info on both human heat pads and heat tape though. Then all I'd need is for someone to dumb it down enough for me to understand it. lol!

No matter what gear you use though it's probably a good idea to have a smoke detector and even a fire extinguisher in your snake room. None of us want to cook our snakes or burn the house down.

[K1LOS]

HOw can i tell if they have the auto shut off doohickey thing or not? Thanks

Geoff

[klein]

it will say right on the box, auto shut-off in 2 hours, and if it doesn't specify on the box it doesn't have the feature. When i was in Walmart they had 2 of the same size, 1 with the shut-off feature and one without, the one without was more expensive, who know's why