Lets talk about your options.



1. Overhead heating in each compartment -

This is easily acheived with ceramic elements or red spot heat lamps. You can mount the light fixture onto an outdoor outlet box to the ceiling of each cage compartment.



What about temp control? The problem with only 1 controller and multiple cages is, what happens if the bulb burns out in the cage where the probe is? Bad news, because the sensor will sense cooler temps and provide power to the heaters to compensate, but the sensor will never see the heat.



Solution: Use a dimmer for all bulbs in a row of cages. Then, run that through 2 Ranco ON/OFF thermostats wired in series, with one probe in one cage and the other probe in another cage. The chances of two bulbs burning out at the same time is far less. Make sure you're thermostat can handle the wattage of all bulbs added up.



2. Heat tape under the drawers -

Easy if you have a space under for it. It can sit on a piece of styrene foam elevated to just below the drawer. The heat will still get through, and this gives you clearance so the drawer will not snag on the heat tape.



What about temp control here? Well, you can do as much heat tape on one controller as wattage limitations of the controller permit. Heat tape doesn't burn out if used correctly. However, if the connections aren't done right, one strip can lose power. Make sure all connections are good. You don't want the probe to be sitting on a heat strip that loses power when the other ones don't.

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