heat pads 24/7?

[Lizzy001]

mines on 24/7.

[marisa]

You won't run as large of a risk of thermal burns if you properly control your heating device.

I use a human heating pad as so far I have seen more fire risk from people wiring their own heat tape up, or lights falling down and starting fires. In my own reptile room, our small iguana once broke free, when I came in my frogs night light was on the floor burning the carpet. Couple minutes more and the house would have caught fire.

My point is that anything that makes heat, including your stove when you cook, is a fire hazard. Some things are a bigger hazard then others, some lower. For us, with cats, a small dog, and other herps....having lights sitting around on top of cages is a FAR higher risk than a heating pad secured underneath. We don't allow the animals to go near the cages but accidents sometimes happen, doors get left open (opps!) or opened, and once like I mentioned our iguana escaped.

I use a human heating pad on my ball python with a thermastat set to 88 or so, 12 hours per day (going on and off all day because of thermastat)....the floor of the cage doesn't go above 90 on the heating pad area, and is covered with layers of paper towel. So far, no thermal burns from these less than 90 temps. So personally I don't agree with "they are the worst thing in the world" or whatever the line was. My choices are wiring my own heat tape, which with my skill would be a HUGE fire hazard, or using lights, which in MY sitaution are also a huge fire hazard.

And I personally didn't save any money buying a human heating pad. I actually ended up spending about 80 dollars MORE than buying a reptile pad because of the thermastat I purchased. It wasn't a choice of price. It never is for me.

Anyways my point is that in certain situations some things are more hazardous than others, where in other situations things are safer. It all depends on what you need.

Marisa

[marisa]

Also:

Since its often brought up, do we have any electricians here? I would like to know what the differances are between a reptile pad and a human pad. Tehcnically that is.

I know nothing about electronics, but from what I can tell by looking at both, they seems to be almost exactly alike.

Marisa

[rattekonigin]

I find that heat lamps really dry up the enclosures, like, when I had my BCI in an aquarium it would go as low as 20% when the heat lamp was on...even with the water bowl underneath (and a warm water bowl is just wonderful for making bacterial soup)...I leave my human heat pads on 24/7, have for a year or so and have had no problems...And they come with their own rheostat (granted it only has 3 settings), I never have mine above "Low", so I don't see how it would get hot enough to catch anything on fire, the surface of the actual heat pad, itself, doesn't go past 120F (I've lived in Georgia, it gets that hot down there in the summer and things don't spontaneously combust)...And, in the boa enclosure, (where the heat pad is underneath) the temps don't get higher than 95F directly on the hot spot and even that temp is rather infrequent. For my corns, I have the heat pad on the back of their tubs.

I also agree with Marisa, I get the impression that reptile pads and people pads are the same, just the people pads have some extra "meat" too them, instead of a bare heating element...That's essentially what heat pads and heat tape are, just mylar-type heating elements...why would they use drastically different types for the same function?...also, the reptile heat pads don't come with a built-in rheostat, and those things get HOT without one...and is it even recommended that those be left on 24/7 anyway?

[Alicewave]

To prevent thermal burn, what I do with my snake is use some hospital tape and tape down a layer of paper towel over where the UTH is. This prevents the snake from coming into direct contact with the heated glass.

[ReptiZone]

for the humidity thing did you ever think of spraying you carg 2 tims a day once in the morning and at night and dont leave your water bowl under the light that is the only place they can go to cool down fast if they want to

[Edwin]

I am not an electrician, but I do believe that they are essentially the same thing. The only difference I can see is that human heat pads are built to higher quality standards than reptile pads, primarily because they are for use by people. Again, I have had a reptile heat pad break down on me, but my human heat pads are still going strong.

Just my 2 cents.

[rattekonigin]

chondro_python: Yes, I did spray down the cage, frequently...But it only upped the humidity for a short amount of time until the warm end dried up and any water on the cool end of the cage ended up kind of pooling underneath the substrate, making it too wet...So what I did for quite a while was just use a humid hide, but the boa was always always in there and it didn't seem right that he never really moved around the cage...when I moved him to the rubbermaid it was a big improvement, humidity around 60-70% with no effort and he's always in different positions in the tub, so I know he's actually comfortable and thermoregulating properly...Rubbermaids all the way for me, from now on! LoL

[ReptiZone]

cool sonds like you have a hold on things with the rubermaids I normaly stire up the mulch b4 re-spraying a cage at night that way the water never stayes at the bottem and to make thing clear a cage is supsto look dry within 1 hour of spraing that is how you know you dont ahve too much humitity in your cage.