Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Still working on the cool basement (see post below about rack heating) and I am now leaning towards walling off a small (10 x 10) corner and heating that. My question for Chris is this: I seem to remember a post about an old herp room you had in which you basically used refelectix as the wall surface. As a quick fix to my cool basement problem, could I frame out this 10 x 10 area and simply staple reflectix to the inside of the frame without any drywall or other material? Would the reflectix alone hold in the heat? I would like to have a completely finished room at some point but had not planned on doing that right away. If this idea would work, however, I could at least get started.

On a somewhat related note: how do radiant heat panels work? I know that may sound like a stupid question but I thought I had read somewhere that RHP's do not heat the air, just a surface. If that is true, would an rhp be an effective heater if I wanted to heat the area underneath a hide like cork bark or egg carton?

Thanks for all of the help recently, I really appreciate it.

Rob

As a quick fix to my cool basement problem, could I frame out this 10 x 10 area and simply staple reflectix to the inside of the frame without any drywall or other material?

Actually you don't even need the framing. I knew a guy with a WWII bomb shelter who just taped up "drapes" of Reflectix and heated the area fine.

Would the reflectix alone hold in the heat? I would like to have a completely finished room at some point but had not planned on doing that right away.

Surprisingly well. This is how I did the snake room in my old rental and I used a space heater set at its lowest 700 watt setting. The guy mentioned above with the bomb shelter also had a drape of Reflectix splitting the room in half so one side could stay cool and he said the temperature shift on either side of the drape was quite dramatic. I think 85* on one side and cold enough to hibernate snakes on the other.

How do radiant heat panels work?

They are basically a high tech heat pad with a layer of radiant blocker and a strategically oriented air space. Radiant energy is directed away from the radiant barrier and that energy is absorbed by objects. Radiant energy is one of the three basic ways that heat is able to move. The other two are conduction (heat traveling through a solid object) and convection, which is heated air.

I thought I had read somewhere that RHP's do not heat the air, just a surface. If that is true, would an rhp be an effective heater if I wanted to heat the area underneath a hide like cork bark or egg carton?

Radiant energy heats objects to the degree that the object is able to absorb and retain heat. Neither cork bark or an egg carton would absorb radiant energy very well. How well the area below would be heated would really depend on what the cage was made of.
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Currently keeping a small collection of various Gonyosoma. Both G. janseni and G. oxycephala.

>>How well the area below would be heated would really depend on what the cage was made of.

>>>>How well the area below would be heated would really depend on what the cage was made of.

I'm thinking of 3/4" melamine with either an RHP or just an incandescent light.

Thanks
Rob

Melamine actually is a decent source of thermal mass so I would expect the hide are to hear nicely, but it's hard to say.

You could also use a heavier hide box or some sort. Maybe clay pots or even make something out of stacked stone.
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Currently keeping a small collection of various Gonyosoma. Both G. janseni and G. oxycephala.

Rob,
Concerning your question of radiant heat getting under hides:

I had a cage with an adult Cal king, newspaper substrate and undertank heat. The snake stayed under the newspaper where heat was trapped from the undertank heater and moved closer or farther to the heat source as needed. OK fine. Works great.

I then took that snake and gave it a cage with coir substrate about 3 inches deep and used radiant heat. The snake would burrow in the coir. To warm up, the king moved under the heater with just a bit of his body barely exposed above the substrate. To cool off, the snake either went deeper or moved laterally to escape the heat.

From the above, you can see that the king is adept at using conduction or radiant heat. You can also see that his behavior changed a bit to adapt.

So for radiant heat, the standard hide box isn't very effective for basking. The snake will bask at the mouth of the hide or somewhere else other than inside the hide. On must use hides that the heat can get into, like substrate as mentioned or a branch on the ground (snake curls up behind the branch where it has some shelter from people looking in but still gets heat from above.)
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Mark

is coir the same stuff as bed-a-beast or other brick type products that expand in water? I keep sand boas so the set up with coir sounds like it would work but I have tried the bed-a-beast and did not particularly care for it as it dried out. I also thought it was too wet when recently expanded so I gave up on it. Are there other forms of coir that might work better? Also, thanks for the info on radiant heat. I have tended to use light bulbs (I know, a type of radiant heat) or heat tape so an RHP would be new for me. Thanks again.

Rob

You don't have to use coir persay. It was what I used in the example. It is indeed Bed-a-Beast and all of the other compressed "brick" substrate products.

It does work for sandboas when mixed with some sand. It is burrowable and holds humidity and yet feels quite dry to the touch thanks to the sand. Kind of a messy substrate but super functional. But shredded aspen will work just fine.

Radiant heaters include ceramic heat emitters and the red infrared spot bulbs. Both of those work wonderfully for radiant heat applications. RHPs are larger in surface area and so heat a wider area, plus they have the nice benefit of not having a burning hot surface.
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Mark