Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've been messing around with encasing a standard UTH between sheets of PVCx as suggested by several posters here. Then I could put it in the cage instead of under like you would with a glass aquarium. My questions:
1) Are the regular UTH's designed to only radiate the heat upwards or does it come out both ways?
2) Is there a material you can put on the bottom of either the PVCx or the UTH to reflect the heat up into the cage?
3) Would plain old aluminum foil do the trick?

Thanks!

>>I've been messing around with encasing a standard UTH between sheets of PVCx as suggested by several posters here. Then I could put it in the cage instead of under like you would with a glass aquarium. My questions:
>>1) Are the regular UTH's designed to only radiate the heat upwards or does it come out both ways?

"Regular" UTH's radiate heat from both sides.

>>2) Is there a material you can put on the bottom of either the PVCx or the UTH to reflect the heat up into the cage?

Yes there is. It is called "Reflectix", and it will handle the heat of a UTH w/o worry. Fiberglass insulation also works, but Reflectix is easier. Problem is, where to get it in small quantities. That I don't know. Chris Harper can help you there.

Another thing you can do (what I have done) is to use 1/4" thick PVCx on the side you want to be less hot and the .1" thick stuff on the side you want to be hotter. Then, glue some 1/4" thick squares (feet) on all four corners of the cooler side to keep it off of the cage floor somewhat. This does not heat the cage floor hardly at all. You can get away with no reflectix if you do this, although you do lose some heat energy out the bottom.

>>3) Would plain old aluminum foil do the trick?

You can use aluminum foil to give the heater more thermal mass, which makes it less hot per wattage in. In fact, if you place some sheet metal on a UTH, you don't even need a dimmer often times. But in your case, the PVCx will add thermal mass to the UTH. So much that in cool temps, the heater will have low temps (meaning not 100 deg surface) when fully on.
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