Dear Joan,



Thanks for your helpful reply.



I appreciate your point about not using just my hand to judge overall temperatures to an animal. I know that I can barely tolerate a hot tub at 108 degrees, so there is no way I could get into hot water at 110 degrees. Yet, I also know that air temperatures of 110 degrees aren't as bad (I was in Phoenix Arizona one summer and had to wear a suit and tie!) Thanks for pointing that out.



A fellow online who has posted cage plans and uses naked flexwatt on the floor has had no problems for many, many years. He did have one malfunction. The flexwatt was burned and charred, and the melamine floor was ruined. He noticed the smell of burning wood, but didn't actually figure the cause until the next day. The snake in the cage? It was fine, having just moved over to the cool side for the time being.



My cages are probably middle sized. They are roughly one foot by 3 feet floor area, with about one foot in height. I'm using one foot of 11 inch flexwatt, so a little less than half the cage is heated, and the rest is unheated. The wall temperatures measure only about 80 degrees right next to the flexwatt tape.



In fact, one of my concerns is that the flexwatt will only be hot if the reptile actually lies on it, but the cage itself isn't going to be warm enough. I'm assuming that the cage wall is a good indication of air temperature, since I've got a spare thermometer in one cage, and it measures the air temperatue right next to the flexwatt at about 80 degrees.



My plan is to use wood shavings as substrate, so the heat needs to further get through the shavings.



I have had a yearling corn snake in a ten gallon tank that has been it's home for life, I believe. It has a heating pad underneath the glass floor of the aquarium tank, and wood shavings over that. It always felt very hot to the touch. When I measured it after getting my heat gun, it read 130 degrees. I've switched to a different tank, using an overheat ceramic emitter for heat, but at least four or five months in that condition produced no injury at all.



I think your most cogent point concerns the difference between the hot spot and the ambient temperature(both of the cage and the room.) Since my cages are relatively small, I suspect that the temperature gradient won't be extreme within the cage. (While one wall shows 80 degrees, the far wall (the cool wall) shows only 5 or ten degrees cooler.)



Further, the cage is all wood, hardboard or glass, and so will have some insulation from the room. The room itself is one of the coolest in the house, especially in winter, but otherwise has a fairly stable temperature.



If the sole source of heat is a hot spot, the reptile can be attracted to it by the need to warm up, and while trying to get warmed up, the extreme pinpoint heat source will burn the snake. I think I'm immune to that, since the flexwatt panel is so large that it isn't much of a pinpoint source (although it does have hot spots within the panel), and the cage temperature isn't that much different. I don't think a snake will be forced to choose between freezing on one side, and getting burned on the other. I understand that is the main danger of heat rocks, when people think they can be used as the overall tank heater, rather than merely a basking spot. (And don't worry, I'll never knowingly buy a heat rock!!)



Thanks again for raising those points, and raising my level of awareness of these issues.



I'm headed towards at least a dimmer switch to cut down the power to the flexwatt, and hopefully, to cut down the temperature. I need to research and learn more about thermostats. Can a single thermostat protect more than a single cage? I'd imagine four identical cages could use a single thermostat probe, but I would be relying on the idea that all cages would be the same temperature. That would be a bad assumption if one cage had a malfunction and overheated to the point of starting a fire, while another cage with the probe was running normally.



I'm going to follow your suggestion to research burns a bit more. Any suggestions about researching and learning about thermostats?



Thanks again for a most helpful dialogue,



Michael

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