Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I recently moved from Florida to Southwest Virginia and am keeping my snakes in the basement of the new house. Since the basement is on the cool side (low 60's with no heat), I have been using an oil filled electric radiator placed near my snake cages to keep the ambient temps up a little bit. I have been keeping the radiator on max power (1500 watts) with it's own thermostat set to "3". I am wondering, as I sit here looking at what I think is a pretty high electric bill, if I would be better off, from an energy efficiency standpoint, keeping the radiator on low power but increasing the thermostat setting. If I could get the temps I wanted by doing that, would that be more energy efficient? Does this make sense to anyone but me? The snakes I keep are Kenyan Sand Boas and this is the first time I have had to keep them somewhere that gets too cool in the winter. Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks.

Rob

I think I've posted to you before regarding my good luck with these heaters so I won't repeat myself.

Radiant heaters are most efficient when they operate at a constant temperature with minimal flucuation. They are not the best when you want to drop a room temp by 10* at night, for example. I would try the lower setting and see how that works.

Also, increase thermal mass in the room as much as possible. Piles of bricks, gargage cans full of water, or just about any furniture.

Line the walls and ceilings with Reflectix if possible. If it's a finished area then get a paint with a radiant barrier added.

What type of floor is in the basement?
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Current snakes:

0.0.1 Gonyosoma oxycephala - Java locale (green)

1.2 Gonyosoma oxycephala - Jave local (green)

2.2 Gonyosoma janseni - Seleyar locale (all black)

1.2 Gonyosoma janseni - Celebes locale (Black & Tan)

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your response. We have discussed these before and from a heating standpoint, I have been very happy with it. I was just hoping to figure out how to have it heat with the least amount of energy necessary.

The basement is what I would call semi-finished. About one third of it has been made into a room with panneling on the walls and industrial grade carpet. The walls to this room are insulated and two of them are interior walls. The rest of the basement is unfinished with concrete floors and no insulation in the walls. There is no heat in any of the basement (finsihed or unfinished). I will try some of your suggestions to get me through the winter. In reality though, this is a temporary set up as this summer I will be building a herp room in my garage. Hopefully we can talk more about that as the time comes as I believe you have done a similar project.

Just as food for thought, the garage is detached from the house and is 28' wide by 32' deep. It is not insulated but it does have water and electricity (outlets every 3 - 4 feet all the way around, a utility sink and a toilet). My plan is to take the back of the garage and make a herp room that is approximately 8' x 16' and a rodent room that is approx 8' x 6'. Unfortunately, there are windows in the garage and to bring the rooms farther out than 8' would either put me right in the middle of the windows or make parking a car in the garage difficult. Even though this project is a little ways off, I am open to suggestions since I figure the planning phase is the time to make adjustments.

Thanks again for all of your help. I'll keep you posted as to the summer project.

Rob

I'll be happy to help when the time comes. Do understand, though, that a lot of what you do will depend on local code. My garage is partially underground (it's built into a hill) and the existing wall was 8" thick poured concrete. And I live in the very dry Black Hills of South Dakota. Your situation will be very different.

But I would strongly recommend that you use Reflectix for your current situation. Just line the walls with it as much as possible. Attach it in a way that you can reuse it come summer when you start your herp room.
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Current snakes:

0.0.1 Gonyosoma oxycephala - Java locale (green)

1.2 Gonyosoma oxycephala - Jave local (green)

2.2 Gonyosoma janseni - Seleyar locale (all black)

1.2 Gonyosoma janseni - Celebes locale (Black & Tan)