Reptile & Amphibian Forums

In case of an outage,,,say youve got a reptile room full of investments worth somethin to you..Are there any backup heating options? Better yet are there any backup power packs say for your incubators??

I own a generator(had it for my photography), but I felt good that is was there in case I lost power while I had eggs incubating. As for heating the snakes, guess it depends on how long the power is off and how cold it gets where you live. I live in Los Angeles, and most of the time if the power went off the snakes would be fine. I say it is just nice to have the option of back up power if you need it.

Heatershop.com,,portable buddy,,,small propane radiant heater perfect for indoors too,,,odorless...I like this one guys check this one out....

I have a natural gas generator. When electric goes down it goes on in eight seconds. My entire home is up and running. It costs me around $300.00 a year to have it tested and change oil. I had it since 1996. It cost me around $10,000.00 installed.
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RicK @ BbI

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Thanx guys but i dont have funding for a generator yet,,,have looked at them. i do have the problem for heat solved with a portable indoor propane buddy. As for 1 room thats fine. however if the temp in a room is ok will the eggs be ok too?????till the power comes back on?????

how big is your budget? cause I have a smaller gas genarator that came from wal-mart and I think it cost around $250 a few years ago. As long as you can keep the temp up near 89 in the room the eggs would be ok.

I must say if you can get a small gen, as said above you can get a small one from hellmart for around $200-250.I'm not sure but I think hellmart has a lay-away so you make payments on it.

I lost power a few times this summer from the storms(I am in FL)And I don't know what I would of done with out a gen(I got it after Charley)Now my snakes were not close to cold in fact with out the gen one of the rooms was at 92deg the day after the storm passed when the sun came out.Trust me you don't want to be in Fl in the summer with out a/c!!!

So even if not for the snakes or eggs it a good thing to have, you never know when you'll need it.

Now here is a plan, I read on-line at another site. I have not tried it yet, but it sounds like it would work,

I wasnt going to post until I waas done building it. But, here goes. The basic parts are: 1 12 volt car battery, ( put it on a battery charger to make sure it is fully charged, power inverters, the best place to get them www.heartlandamerica.com, a continous duty motor, ( im using a fan motor) a 12 volt voltage gauge, a mid 70s to mid 80s chevy altenator, the 2 wire clip that plugs into the altenator this is for the voltage gauge, a large pulley that fits on electric motor, a v-belt, a base to mount everything on preferably wood, and 2 scrap pieces of 2x4. First lay down the base. Then put down the two pieces of 2x4 side by side. Put the altenator on one 2x4 and the electric motor with a tall pulley attached on the other 2x4. After you figure out the placement of the 2x4s fasten them to the base. To fasten the altenator and the electric motor to the 2x4s I use a piece of exhaust hanger that comes in a roll. (autozone) Put the v-belt on the electric motor and altenator. Next connect your voltage gauge to the clip in the altenator. You will need to make a mounting bracket for the gauge. Now you will need to find a place on the base plate for the battery and the power inverter or power inverters. Connect the power inverter to the battery. Run a piece of 10 gauge primary wire from the battery to the back of the altenator. There is a connector marked battery. Double check all of your connections and make sure nothing will get caught in the moving pulleys or belt. Plug the electric motor into the power inverter. Turn on the power inverter. Check the voltage gauge. It should read 14-16 volts. (just like your car) Now you should have a generator that makes no noise and requires no fuel. One last thing, the battery should be placed near a window as it gives off sulferic acid while charging. Ohhh yeahhh this thing is very heavy. You may want to assemble it near the place you will use it.

But for the price of building it, you could get the gen at hellmart, but you'll still need gas, and you can't run it inside.

Hope it helps.
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2.3 burms
2.4 balls
1.1 Kenyan sand boa
0.1 coastal carpet
0.0.1 nile
0.0.1 savanna
0.0.1 water monitor

How long till you finish it ?
If it works out well for you,please let us know.
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3.12 Ball Pythons
0.1 Mutant Thayeri

Sorry,

I just copied it from another post from another site, I'm not building one.

I do think it would work, after reading more of that post He says it will hold 2500 watts continuous and 5000 peak, That should do more then keep your snake warm.

Anyway I just thought it was a good idea.

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2.3 burms
2.4 balls
1.1 Kenyan sand boa
0.1 coastal carpet
0.0.1 nile
0.0.1 savanna
0.0.1 water monitor

Howdy, first let me give some background info on me to give some weight to my opinion. I work in a small but busy electric motor shop, I am a repair/rebuild tech. We deal with all sorts and sizes of electric motors including generators. When I first read the above post about the "indoor silent generator" I could not quite figure out why but I felt it would not work. This was last night, so I printed the post and took it to work with me to have my boss look it over and evaluate it. His opinion is very simple...."It will not work" reason being that nothing runs anywhere near 100% efficiency. Now assuming efficiency is somewhere about 80% (still a hopeful estimate) he thinks it might produce enough power to just about break even...meaning no surplus power for heating pads. It breaks down to one simple principle, you can't get something out of nothing. Think about it this way, if 5000 watts of power could be produced this way electric cars would never need to be charged. I am sorry to be the one killing this theory, but I cannot see how it could possibly work as it is described.

You might be right, Like I said I found it on a nother site, and thought it would work. I do know this summer I have seen someone run a frig, of a little 400 watt power inverter and a 12V boat battery for over 36hrs when power was out.So I know it would work for a little bit.

But with the cost of it you can just get a small gen. or run a power inverter from your car to your reptile room. Even if you had to run your car every few hrs.
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2.3 burms
2.4 balls
1.1 Kenyan sand boa
0.1 coastal carpet
0.0.1 nile
0.0.1 savanna
0.0.1 water monitor

I would invest in a generator. For a few hundred bucks, you have some real power if an outage should occur. We may be getting one because we live in a rural area and get power outages often in wintertime.
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2.1 Ball pythons: Goblin, Ashes, and Bela
1.0 Boa Constrictor Imperator: Apache Fog
0.1 albino Cranwell's horned frog: Bene
1.0 Tiger salamander: Slasher
1.1 breeding Clawed frogs: Mr and Mrs Piggy
1.0 black kittycat, Inky
A bunch of Oscar cichlids, one giant pleco, huge breeding lot of "fancy" (read: deformed) goldfish, and me an' the boyfriend.

If you're on budget, like I am, you can do a couple of simple things to ensure your snakes make it through a power outage.

I have a battery backup (UPS) on my cages. They're the kind that are designed for computers. Depending on their battery size and your demands, you can get anywhere from 15 minutes to 1 hour of power from them.

Another, more McGiver approach, is to buy some chemical hand warmers and a small critter keeper type box. If the power goes out and your cage temps start to drop, you can activate the hand warmer and place the snake with it in the small enclosure. A hot water bottle is another avenue in an emergency. Some of the warmers get pretty hot so you may have to tone the temp down by wrapping it in a towel.