Here are some pics of one of my older set ups that I built. Don't mind the vision cage that is being stored on top (I use to think you had to keep animals in big glass tanks or vision cages when I was younger). The side view shows a dimmer and timer as well as the Expanded PVC siding.

What I do is I first turn on the heat tape with no thermostat so that I can dim it to the hottest exceptable range without getting to hot. Then hook it to a thermostat. This will prevent the thermostat from allowing to much power and bringing temps really high. This happened to me twice when I did not use a dimmer. The thermostat would allow the heat tape to pulse to its highest setting and heat up the cage way to hot.

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