Heating an enire room?

Vengeance · 05-16-04, 08:02 PM

I'm moving to a new house in July (YA ME!) and since me and my girlfriend have lived in an apt for the past 3 years I never had a room to dedicate to my animals. I'm picking up at least 2 more ball pythons and what I want to do is dedicate an entire room to them.

Now the reason for this is so that I can better control the ambient air temps in the cages. By heating the whole room I’d be able to maintain proper day and night time drops and the like but my only concern is that it may damage the room itself. So my question is when heating a room to 85oF are there any precautions or perpetrations I need to make on the room to make sure no damage is done to the room. Also same questions goes if I wanted to control the humidity in the room as well.

Thanks

Vengeance

Jeff_Favelle · 05-16-04, 08:20 PM

I wouldn't heat a room to 85F seeing as your Ball Python will need a cool spot of 80F and your Cal King will want a cool spot of 75-78F. How the heck is that possible if the WHOLE room is heated to an ambient of 85F??? The COLDEST any part of any cage in your room could POSSIBLY be is 85F. Not a good thing.

V.hb · 05-16-04, 08:40 PM

You can use a space heater.. But like Jeff said, be pretty careful of how hot it does get. They still need a cool escape.

Scales Zoo · 05-16-04, 09:34 PM

Unless you have a fan in the room, chances are you will see quite a temperature change from the bottom to the top of the room.

This works well, colubrids on the bottom, boas and pythons on the top. You can also mess with the amount of heat pad under each tank / rubbermade, and the power of the heat tape to get things just right for each of your snakes.

If you are making a python only room, I know people who keep the ambient humidity of the room really high, which works well enough, I guess. One of these people uses tin foil on the ceiling, so the humidity doesn't harm the ceiling tiles.

Ryan

Stockwell · 05-16-04, 10:19 PM

I've always heated my entire room and still do. But my temps are controlled by a Home type "set back" thermostat that allows for different temps at different times of the day. I'm currently using a Hunter type programmable from Canadian Tire. It was 35 bucks and has 4 setpoints per day and I alter those temps for different seasons.

My room has a high of 82 during the day and I let it set back to 80 at night during breeding season.
In the fall I'll start to lower the night set temp, and by January the room will be seeing 68F at night, for cycling the boids. Colubrids and Rosies would be in a separate room controlled at 55F by then,using an identical system.
I don't use supplemental heating on any colubrids, and never have, therfore my colubrids don't really have any gradient in ambient heat. If its too hot they tend to hang out near the water bowl.
My black milks and Hondurans which like cooler temps are in the lowest trays in the racks which are naturally a few degrees cooler closer to the floor...
It all works out great, and I do it all with a fan blown room heater which has a 500 and thousand watt setting. I use the kilowatt setting in winter and reduce it to 500 watts in the spring.
Having the herp room upstairs also makes it more cost effective to heat in winter
Its a good idea to insulate your room and area above the ceiling well as that's where most of heat goes..up
Only gravid boas and pythons have heat tape under one end of the tray to provide the 92F required by some.
I find it quite economical to heat the entire room but I recommend you have a programmable thermostat with different daily settings, as I have done.
There are days in summer when it gets too hot, but I have a central air register in there that I open in the summer, and the entire house is controlled to keep the herp room in resonable range.

Derrick · 05-16-04, 11:39 PM

another thing to consider. If you dont have A/C You will have to consider what floor of the house you put them on and which side of the house.

Vengeance · 05-17-04, 08:57 AM

Sorry I guess I should have clarified more, I'll explain in further detail,

I'm going to be starting my first Ball python breeding project this summer. I'll be picking up 1.1 100% Het Albinos from Markus Jayne. Now the only thing that is going to be kept in this room is Ball pythons. Right now my current setup is just a tank with UTH and lights to help control the heat properly. I have an ambient air temp of 85 in the tank at all times, the cool side has a surface temp of 80 - 85 and the hot side has 90 - 95. But I can't accurately control the temps in the cage because all I use is a rheostat right now. This all being said since I want to start breeding I need to be able to gain a better measure of control over the temps. So in the room I will have a Danby space heather that has a built in Thermostat. This way I will be able to control the ambient air temps in the room and make sure they drop at night and have proper cooling during the winter months.

The way I want to setup each cage will be that each cage will have 1 UTH which I will have a Thermostat hooked up too. That thermostat will control the basking spot and make sure that during the day it is between 90 - 95 and at night I get the appropriate drop. The cooler side of the tank will then be controlled by the ambient air temp in the room using the Danby space heater. No from what I'm hearing 85oF might be a little too hot, understood, would 83 or 80 be a better temp to keep the room at?

So now with all the information on what I'm planning to do back to my original question will the constant heat changes cause any damage to the room itself. Wood warping, mold/mildew, paint problems, or anything I may not be taking into account.

Just as another note the cages will either be Rubbermaid’s or custom wood enclosures. I already have a 3 tier wood enclosure built just need to clean it up and finish and seal the wood to make sure the humidity doesn't damage it.

Any comments on my entire setup or answers to if I will cause any damage would be greatly appreciated as I'm just trying to make sure I do everything right the first time around.

Thanks again

Adam

Vengeance · 05-19-04, 08:43 PM

Any advice on the damage I could cause to my room or things wrong with my plan?

Lisa · 05-19-04, 08:52 PM

for that few herps it would probably cost you too much.

You might consider putting them in large closet and working with that.

Jeff Hathaway · 05-19-04, 10:35 PM

The heat shouldn't be a problem, but if your humidity is high you will get mold growth, and could cause damage to the drywall, insulation and framing over the long term. If this is a long term plan, I'd at least paint the room with a very impermeable, mildew-resistant paint such as Permawhite or Impervo. Allow lots of time for it to cure before putting animals in the room. Even better, epoxy coat the entire room. If you're starting from scratch, insulate the room well, and install vapour barrier plastic before applying cement board (rather than drywall) as a wall finish. Then paint as above.

Jeff Hathaway
Sciensational Sssnakes!!

Vengeance · 05-20-04, 06:09 AM

Lisa

Yea I thought that it would be a little much for just 3 total ball pythons but I'm trying to think of the future and I'm trying to gain a greater measure of control over the ambient air temps. With a space heater with thermostat built in I can gain a much greater control of the temps where if I just try to stick with rheostats I'll have a tougher time accurately controlling temps. I'd like to use the only walkin closet in the house we have for this project but my Girlfriend has already claimed it for all her clothes

Jeff

The room already exists, maybe when I finish the basement I may dedicate a room to them downstairs and take the steps you suggested preventing any problems with humidity. For now I'm going to monitor humidity on a per cage basics. I can get in the crawl space and make sure the ceiling is insulated so I'll do that once I get into the house.

Thanks everyone for the advice.

Lisa · 05-21-04, 05:20 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Vengeance
The room already exists, maybe when I finish the basement I may dedicate a room to them downstairs and take the steps you suggested preventing any problems with humidity. For now I'm going to monitor humidity on a per cage basics. I can get in the crawl space and make sure the ceiling is insulated so I'll do that once I get into the house.

Basement sounds great, you'll find that the temps are probably a little more stable and if you're starting the room from scratch you will be able to put in base board heaters like tony's herp room which can be controled by a computerised thermostat and you'll be able to drop the temps at night.
You might even want to have the room divided into two, one side for colubrids and one for boids... but that would be usefull only if you wanted to get into colubrids...

Vengeance · 05-21-04, 05:45 PM

This is more long term goals, I need to move into the house first, lol! Closeing date is July 9th so for now I'm just planning on setting everything up in one room and take it from there. I think I've decided that for 3 Ball pythons it's not worth heating an entire room. Mabye in a few years when I start breeding it will be worth it, but for now I don't think it is, I'll need to figure out some way to accuratly controll ambiant air temps in the cages. I have a 3 tier wooden cage that I'm going to use, but I've never used it before so I don't know how the temps will keep in there, if just the one UTH will keep everything hot enough or what, but I'll figure it all out in time.