Steve Allen's new enclosure. Part 1

[jarich]

So I quickly found out that when I personally designed my enclosure, I didnt take into account some important things. Needless to say it has bowed and is going to be in a bad way soon. Hence beginning the new digs for Steve, my savannah monitor. He is presently in a different room from the others but for heating/humidity consideration, Im going to be moving him back into the room with the rest. The room is fairly small though, but luckily the ceiling is quite high. I guess that leaves me with putting in a second floor!

My ceiling height is 15 feet, and Im going to devote the top five feet of that to his enclosure. I will make it the width of the room, which is 12 feet, and have it be 6 feet long as well. (giving him a 12' x 6' x 5' enclosure). Of the five foot height, two feet will be windows along the front wall so that he can look out into the room.

Im lucky enough to have a lot of friends in the engineering/construction industry and posed the problem to them of dealing with the weight of all that soil and water. They made up some drawings for me...and like all construction projects Im already over budget! Ha! (my budget of $1000 quickly had to be redone). I am going to be starting by tying into the masonry wall at one end, and adding metal support pillars to the opposite side. Unfortunately only one wall is masonry, so I cant count on the other two for any support. I am then going to be making floor joists out of 3" x 12" wood, running one every 10". I will be using this same size to make the frame for the front wall, and for the walls that are just normal drywall, as added support. The front windows will be two pieces, measuring 4' x 2' each. I will be buying a large 30 gallon black tub like the one Wayne has for Chompers enclosure, and permanently placing it with a fixed drain that runs out through the floor. Im going to cover the inside floor and walls with 3/4" marine plywood and then lining it with tin to avoid any problems if he starts to try to dig his way out.

Its kind of a daunting project, but Im excited to get started and give him a home he can live in for the rest of his life!

[Lankyrob]

Just a thought, why not put his super heavy enclosure on the floor level and the other animals up top, less weight up high and the heat from the sav enclosure will help heat the others too

[spots]

Good idea Rob.

jarich what is your sub floor?

[jarich]

Ya, I wish I could Rob, but its more of a functional thing. My reptile room also doubles as my office, which is why the monitor enclosure isnt in there already. With my desk, filing cabinet, etc there just isnt enough floor space for us both. The other enclosures are all small enough to fit in and around the necessary office stuff. Id love to keep Steve on the floor with me as he is always so active and fun to watch, but just not physically possible unfortunately. Believe me when I say I do not look forward to lugging the dirt up there! Makes my back sore just thinking about it

As for the flooring, my office is located in an old 19th century brewery, so the floors are HEAVY duty stuff. The supports are big solid 1 foot by 1 foot beams and the joists are 4" x 12".

[Gungirl]

Seems like cleaning his "room" will be a nightmare.

[jarich]

Shouldnt be, no. Thankfully, Savannahs make it pretty simple by always relieving themselves in the water, so there isnt much else to clean up. I take out any shed pieces I find, but thats about it. Ill have a drain in the floor so water clean up should be pretty easy.

[beardeds4life]

why dont you make him a cage that double as a desk and you could put filing cabinets or other things on top of your "desk" and some of the other enclosures could go on there to. You could make the top of the desk glass so you could see him in there when your working.

[jarich]

Ha! That would be pretty cool. I'd drive him crazy though, I tap my toes the whole time I'm on the computer.