Getting ready to build snake cages/help please.

[damzookeeper]

Hi, I'm getting ready to build my snake cages. I want to build some for my balls and corns. These are my biggest snakes reaching a little over 4 feet. My other snakes are all under 3. Hognose, milks, ksb. I have precut wood that was given to me. Now this wood is 4 feet 4 inches long and 1 foot 6inches wide. Right now I have these guys in a rack system in rubbermaids. Sweater boxes and blanket boxes. I'm curious if I could get away with housing them in 2x 1.5 cages or should I put the corns and balls in full cages of 4x 1.5? and build some 2x 1.5 on top for the milks and hoggies? Would a female ksb need something larger than a 2x 1.5? My male is small and I hear they don't need more than a 10 gallon and 2x 1.5 is a bit larger than a 20 gallon. I do however want to give these snakes the best care and housing possible but I want to also use up my space wisely as I also have 6x1.5 cages and going up in that room as well. I still haven't decided yet, but if anyone has their animals in cages like this and knows if they will use all that extra space (the 4 feet I mean) then please respond. Thanks. Also I have to figure out how I'm going to heat it since I want to go with the heat rope I already have. Is it alright to run it up the back wall on one side, or should they definately have belly heat? If so I'm not sure how I'll manage that yet. And I don't want to use lighting in these cages. They will have light from the window and light from the room lighing.

Thanks in advance.