Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've been talking about a wierd smell in the house for 2 days now. It smelled similar to the house heater when it first comes on in the winter- burnt like. Well we have dogs so i've just been thinking some hair got up on the heater and thats what i smell...
My husband couldn't smell anything. I had 2 friends over last nite- nothing. I had my dad and his g/f over today- couldn't smell anything either- so all these people think i'm nuts.

I go around this evening to start cleaning tubs on my brand new rack... what do i find?
The flexwatt has a hole in it- burned hole- about 7 inches across an 11' strip.
Has melted one tub and severely burned one snake, and another appears to be... almost high from the fumes.

I have/had the flexwatt hooked up to a thermostat and the other seperate strip (there are 2) is operating fine. The rest of the flexwatt that is burned is operating fine (it was- now its in the trash).
The thermostat is operating properly- all of these temps have been verified by temp gun and the digital coralife prop thermomaters.
I had the rack set up for a few days to get the temps right before putting the animals inside- they've been inside for 3 days...
about the time i started smelling something.

Now, I"m thinking I pushed the tubs back too far, against the flexwatt... and it just melted... but why didn't the thermostat kick off...

I'm lost and REALLY freaked out, now i have piles of 10 gallon aquariums all over my dining room until "further notice"...

I have used flexwatt for years- just never in a rack... and i've never had a problem like this- which makes me think I did something...

anyone else had a problem like this- can someone advise me without chewing on me?

Thank you!
beth
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The rescue site: www.freewebs.com/okreptilerescue

I would think that the Flexwatt must have been comprimised in the location it burned. Keep in mind that the flexwatt is resistive by design, and it uses the current drop across this resitive element to heat it up. I believe you said it was a new rack - no? I would think the flexwatt watt was shorted out or damaged either during the manufacturing process or sometime during installation or assembly. It is a good heads up to everyone that they may want to remember to test run a new rack for a bit prior to using it to check for defects. I would think once you run the flexwatt for awhile and know it's not defective, it would be good to go long term at that point.

Thats kinda scary, but helpful as well. I'm planning on using flexwatt with my rack, but I will run it for a few days first. Also, did you use that silver tape (mind is not working, can't think of what it's called) or duct tape. I heard you can. If you didn't, do you think it could've helped. Maybe your snake wouldn't have been burned as much.
I'm also curious as to why your thermostat didn't do anything. What exactly do they do. I thought they shut it off or something if the temps go up or it messes up.

Your question about why the thermostat didnt shut off when the flexwatt burnt is a good one. It seems to me that what probably happened is that the flexwatt over-heated only in the spot where the hole burned into it. If the temperature probe on the thermostat wasnt near this spot, the thermostat woud have no way of knowing that it was overheating somewhere else in the strip.

I would really like to inspect this flexwatt and see if the heating element portions are still working, either before or after (or both) where the burn hole is? Flexwatt is setup with two "rails", one running down each side of the flexwatt and this is where the A/C power is connected and the heating element is between these two rails. It works like the rear window defogger on your car. Alot of times in your car one or two of the heating elements will burn out and stop working, but the others will continue to function and you will have unmelted strips of ice on your rear window. This is because your rear defogger and flexwatt are both parallel circuits. The flexwatt is so much more dangerous because(in addition to it being in your house), the 120Volt AC line power used in the flexxwat application is capable of supplying far more current than the 12 Volt DC from your car battery. If you wanted to be able to remotely monitor this for failure, you would need to monitor current draw and/or line voltage drop on the fexwatt in addition to the thermostat alone that most people use...

That happened to me a couple of years ago. I bought 100' of flexwatt at a show, and divided it up between three racks. Lasted about a month, then burned a hole through one rack. I replaced that stretch of flexwatt-figured I'd made a mistake in installation. Then a couple weeks later another hole!

I got smart and ripped out and discarded/replaced that entire batch. No problems since. It was just a defective batch of flexwatt. It can happen.
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Brad Chambers

The Avalanche has already started-it is too late for the pebbles to vote....

I had the same thing happen once. I think it was caused from the bottom of the tub rubbing against the flex watt. The flex watt was a little bunched up. If the flex watt was completely flat, I don't think that it would have happened. Hope this helps.

Are you using a closed rack or an open rack? If you are using a closed rack, switch the heat to the back wall of the rack. It will heat just as good as belly heat. This prevents the tub from rubbing the heat tape, and if it overheats the snake can move to the front of the tub and get away from it. Also, if it burns a hole in itself the snake's belly will not be in direct contact with the heat element thus preventing a burn.
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Happy Herping,
Jody Barnes
Royal Kreationz

My snakes aren't fat, they're big boned.

I'm using a home made rack- the heat is on the back- it melted the whole side of the tub- it burned the snakes side (stupid thing didn't move) and snake 2 was high as kite from the fumes.

It just makes me so mad. Now i'm afraid to leave my house- i check on everyone constantly- making myself and my husband crazy walking around, messing with all the cages and temp-gunning the flexwatt....

I thought it was me that messed up I never would have thought defective product...

now i'm cranky...

thanks for making me feel somewhat better that its not just me...

beth
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The rescue site: www.freewebs.com/okreptilerescue

If you look at the webpage for animal plastics under the caging and supplies section, you will see that they don't use heat tape. Instead, they use the ZOOMED heat rope. They cut a channel in the back and silicone it inside there. The heat rope will get plenty hot, but if there is any failure of the thermostat, it doesn't get hot enough to kill the snakes. This is the same product that Vision uses to heat their racks. If you would like a pic of the heating system, let me know and I will take some pics of it for you.
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Happy Herping,
Jody Barnes
Royal Kreationz

My snakes aren't fat, they're big boned.

I use the heat cable, too. It seems a lot safer than flexwatt to me. I let it run on full power for a day in an empty rack once...the hotspot temps got into the upper 90s but that was it. It doesn't seem like it gets hot enough to do any serious damage if the t-stat fails. I think it's easier to set up, too.

Shelly