If you need the structural support of a solid wooden floor you should line it with expanded PVC, aka PVCX or Sintra or some other names. You should be able to find it at sign shops.



You simply have to cut a hole out of the wooden floor that is slight bigger than your heating element. Cover the entire floor with the PVCX and then place the heating element under that. PVCX conducts heat nicely due to the closed cell nature of the foamed interior.



For this application you might be able to use 1/8" material.



If your cage is solid enough you could possibly use 1/4" for the entire bottom. I've done something similar to this before. I made 4'x2'x2' cages with no bottoms. Then I simply stapled thin plastic material to the bottom and then placed the cage on top of another cage. The top of the bottom cage supported the flimsy plastic bottom of the cage above it.



This made the cages somewhat lighter and also allowed for easy changing of the bottom when it became damaged by water spills, etc.

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