nice effort Wayne, but a few points that may help.

One deep substrate is the mass that holds the humidity animal uses. Its not really about the humidity of the air.

Burrows in substrate, monitors perfer to dig their own burrows. The reason is, the manner in which they dig them FITS their body exactly. They will use many burrows to suit the needs at the time.

Also one of the main tasks burrows do is provide a usable temp gradient, so they should have the ability to burrow under the hot area. Monitors perfer to bask hidden most of the time. Having that choice makes for a much more stable monitor. The less stressed a monitor is, the more likely it will NOT need to hide.

ALso, you did not address the reason you last monitor was chronically dehydrated.

The farther the heat lamps are from the basking surface, the more air is heated and that is the cause of your monitors problems

The key to a good cage is, the ability to have deep substrate, and be very versitile. That is, have big doors to move and change things as needed. Be water tight so they do not age quickly.

Lastly, your seperate areas leaflitter, etc, will not work, as the monitor will move and mix it all up, and very quickly. IF ITS HEALTHY.

The only real flaw I see is not having the ability to use deeper substrate.

Maybe you should read Auffenburgs Komodo book, it has GREAT diagrams of typical monitor burrows and their uses. Of course, yours would be smaller, but exactly the same. Best of luck

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