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Is there any possible danger or reason that you shouldnt use an UTH designed for people? The kind you get at the drug store.

>>Is there any possible danger or reason that you shouldnt use an UTH designed for people? The kind you get at the drug store.

Most of them have auto turn offs after a certain time....so that sleeping people don't get burned. I had one ancient one that worked fine for years. Trouble is they are not really made to run all the time and fry themselves. So if you can find one without the auto turn off and if you are willing to constantly monitor it to be sure it hasn't died.....

I prefer a roll of flexwatt.
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Sonya

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I check my temps twice a day so it wouldnt really be a big deal. Im not looking to save money or cut corners its just that i have one already and the size of it works for the cage i want to use it on. It has 3 power settings. My concern is not of it dying but of it causing a fire or something.

I did this once when I was using our human heat pad on a cage temporarily (don't tell my wife) -

I used an appliance timer to shutoff the heat pad and turn it back on periodically. This prevented the auto shutoff from turning the heat pad off on its own. Better to have a few ON/OFF cycles during the day compared to the pad being off until manually reset, especially while on vacation.
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Mark

I used them for years under glass tanks.Not the best solution but they worked fine while I had them.I have all flex now.
But I have to say I either used blocks of wood or dowels to keep the tanks off the heat pads(air space).Also they run hot even on the low settings so watch out for that.
I do know toward the end I had a hard time finding them without the auto shut off but if you check around at some of the less popular drug stores they still sometimes stock the old school kind.
If youve ever taken one apart, heat pads are just heat cable sandwiched between plastic.

Ive plugged them into extension cords that I put a dimmer switch on and that works great for further reducing temps if you need to.
I still have a few around for emergency heat if I need it.