reptile=electric

justin4snakes · 02-06-11, 03:18 PM

what does your electric bill look like?? any tips on how to not spend my entire pay on 1 electric bill??

Lankyrob · 02-06-11, 03:53 PM

We have seven ceramics and two MVB running currently, the cost per month is sbout £8.

infernalis · 02-06-11, 04:18 PM

We have a LOT of cages, and the Savannah Monitor cage draws the most power..

Our electric bills are not significantly higher now than they were before we had reptiles.

derekcm87 · 02-06-11, 06:30 PM

What type of heating are you using?

NennaMeerkat · 02-06-11, 06:37 PM

We have 2 reptiles that have non-ceramic heating lights and one has an UTH. Sometimes I use 2 lights on one since the room it is in gets a bit colder this time of year. I haven't noticed any major changes in our bill. It is always about 130-150 bucks a month. And we have a 3 bed house with 3 people living in it. I am home all the time so there is no real "down time" in the house in general.

As far as reptiles go I couldn't tell you. However how we cut our electricity in general was to bring the temp of our house up or down by 5 degrees. In the Winter/Fall our thermostat heat is set at 65 degrees. During the Summer/Spring our thermostat AC is set at 75. That actually brought our bill down by nearly 200 dollars a month!

infernalis · 02-06-11, 07:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by derekcm87

What type of heating are you using?

I maintain the whole room at 85 degrees. Most of my snakes are temperate colubrids, so they require no more heat than that.

The Savannah Monitor has 2 basking lamps that are on 24/7 and has a radiant (hot water) heat exchanger running along the back wall of his enclosure. When the house furnace calls for heat, the radiator behind his cage heats up.

The African and Asian animals have UTH to supplement the house heat.

The system is quite efficient.

mykee · 02-06-11, 09:35 PM

I heat close to 125 ball pythons and run two incubators, a dehumidifier and an oil-filled heater for about $24 a month.
4" heat tape w/ Herpstat thermostats.

percey39 · 02-07-11, 07:40 AM

A good tip having cheap electricity is dont own as many snakes, but if your like me you wont listen to that lol. I run globes and ceramics. My bill is around $500 per 3 months so its starting to get a bit expensive compared to when i only had minimal snakes.

derekcm87 · 02-07-11, 08:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by percey39

A good tip having cheap electricity is dont own as many snakes, but if your like me you wont listen to that lol. I run globes and ceramics. My bill is around $500 per 3 months so its starting to get a bit expensive compared to when i only had minimal snakes.

Wow! how many animals are you heating with a bill like that? I have 30 snakes all on flexwatt and my bill is between $60-80 a month. Its an average sized house, around 1200 square feet. My wife would freak over a bill like that lol!

infernalis · 02-07-11, 10:57 AM

I do highly recommend that anyone with many snakes (&/or Lizards) set up a dedicated room and keep the ambient room temps rather warm.

This makes all the cage heaters work a lot less and in the end saves energy.

Even a simple oil filled radiator type heater in the middle of the room will take a huge load off your individual cage heating requirements.

Heaters that blow air are bad for reptile rooms, they will dry out the air really bad and evaporate all your water bowls quickly, so avoid them.

percey39 · 02-07-11, 04:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by derekcm87

Wow! how many animals are you heating with a bill like that? I have 30 snakes all on flexwatt and my bill is between $60-80 a month. Its an average sized house, around 1200 square feet. My wife would freak over a bill like that lol!

Most of my cages in the hot's room are kept at very high temps. I live in one of the cooler parts of australia so i have to have the cages working all the time for them to get temps in the hot end around 36-38 degrees celcius. We are lucky to hit these temps more than 10 times a year down where i live. So keeping a lot of desert species can have downfalls lol.
In saying that i leave my copperheads completely with out heat all year round in that room as its normally 24 degrees celcius ambient temp.
My ex used to hate the power bill's but when i pay them all she has nothing to sook over haha.

marvelfreak · 02-07-11, 05:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by infernalis

I do highly recommend that anyone with many snakes (&/or Lizards) set up a dedicated room and keep the ambient room temps rather warm.

This makes all the cage heaters work a lot less and in the end saves energy.

Even a simple oil filled radiator type heater in the middle of the room will take a huge load off your individual cage heating requirements.

Heaters that blow air are bad for reptile rooms, they will dry out the air really bad and evaporate all your water bowls quickly, so avoid them.

This is what i do and it works great. Got the idea from Wayne. It's actually made my heat bill drop about $15.00 a month this winter. Plus my snake aren't spending 80% of their time on the hot side this winter. Works wonders for keeping temps up when it's really cold.