Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've been trying like h--- to get this flexwatt to work in my cage. I completely give up. I called Pro-Products and this guy gave me all kinds of tips:

For a wood cage, take home insulation that is styrofoam covered with silver foil on both sides, about $12 a 4X8 sheet, 1 inch thick. Affix this to the bottom, yes bottom of the wood floor. He told me you lose allot of heat to the floor. Doesn't make sense to me but he ought to know his business, he's been doing this for 45 years.

Vents! I explained the size of my cage, 270 gallons! He said the amount of air I'm losing around the door edges, they are not weather stripped or covered, combined with the small 4" shower grate at the bottom of the cage is enough. He explained how moist air holds heat easier than dry air and all that.

I purchased a 15"X24", 110 (or 120) watts pro-products heat panel to plug into a thermostat. When using a line voltage stat, make sure it can take low wattages. The ones I have can handle UP TO 600 watts so he said they would be fine. The stats that can take up to 4,000 watts may not even function at lower wattages say under 100 watts.

The room my snakes are in may get to 65 degrees at night so he recommended a larger panel. This one panel will heat the entire cage, once I insulate and cover openings. They have a 10 year guarantee but he said they should last a lifetime. 10 years is good enough for me. I'll let you know how the process goes if I have problems.

Does anyone want my flexwatt? I have 3 pieces that are 3 panels long (11" and a single 11" panel. You pay the shipping and they are yours! You gotta trust me on this one if you want them and send about $5 to ship them. If it's more I'll trust you to send me the rest. If it's less I'll put it in the box. I hate to waste things that are not broken and I hate these panels. I've had them hooked up and working but I just did not have enough faith in their ability to heat my cage reliably. They've cost me more time and money than I care to think about.
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DZ
1.0.0 Burm, Moses
0.0.2 Ball, Chico & Chewy (rescue, many scars)
0.2.0 Cats, Merideth & Hannah
1.0.0 Black Chow, Pivo RIP Oct 23
Lotsa fish
1.4.0 Rats
0.2.0 Humans (a little obnoxious though)

All very good tips. Bob at PP knows what he is talking about, and has advised me on cage heating through the years.

Like you, my cages are in normal room temps and I use radiant heat panels exclusively. When I originally wanted to quit using bulbs in the early 90s I tried FlexWatt. All I ever got was a hot spot in a cold cage. The FlexWatt or similar UTH tape did nothing to warm the cage air even though a patch of the floor was hot. I tried FW with wood and Neodesha cages and the results were the same, except that the FlexWatt distorted the bottom of one of my Neo cages.

So I went to red bulbs for a while, controlled with proportional thermostats. Then I discovered radiant heat panels and never went back. Today, about 10 years later, RHPs are all I use.

Unless you have a specially heated herp room where all you need is a basking area, RHPs are the way to go.

Thanks for the tips!

Regards,

Bill

DZ,

The floor insulation works very well but not only for wood cages. In fact it probably does more for plastic and glass cages than it does for wooden cages.

The foil is very important as it reflects the radiant portions of the heat. Unless you're forcing heated air into your cage chances are you're mostly using radiant heat for your reptiles - light bulbs, heat pads, heat tape, CHE's and RHP's all produce radiant heat.

In fact just the bubble/foil insulation is probably all you need and you can likely buy it in smaller quantity than the styrene/foil insulation. I've been experimenting with this product and am amazed at what can be accomplished with strategic placement of this material.

Bill,

>>When I originally wanted to quit using bulbs in the early 90s I tried FlexWatt. All I ever got was a hot spot in a cold cage.

Bingo. Too many keepers simply take a temperature at the location of the under cage heat source and assume all is well. 95* at the hot spot, great, but often the cage is cold elsewhere.

>>Unless you have a specially heated herp room where all you need is a basking area, RHPs are the way to go.

I agree that RHP's are almost always a wise choice. But I prefer CHE's or heat bulbs for species that require extreme basking temps and relatively cool areas elsewhere in their cage. Many species of lizards, for example. In fact I really like CHE's in most applications. But RHP's are easier to use, more efficient, require less space, and don't heat cages stacked above so much.
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Current snakes:

1.1 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Silver/Yellow)

3.4 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Green)

2.1 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black)

Almost all of the energy lost through the bottom of a surface (down) is in the form of radiant energy. Without getting into an extremely long post about the science behind this, even if the cage is several feet above a surface, the cage will lose energy to that surface, and the greater the difference in temperature, the faster the rate of loss from the warmer surface to the cooler one. This is especially important when the floor or surface is concrete or a similar material that will ususally be fairly cool and has hardly any R-value.

Since metal is opaque to infrared energy, 100% will be reflected from the foil surface of these types of insulation. This is the same technology that low-e glass and other heat savings devices use. The foil faced, high density insulation (polyisocyanurate)I recommend has a much higher R-value than the "bubble foil" does. Also , to obtain the most efficient reflectivety, you want to create an airspace between the bottom surface and the foil of at least 3/4". This is easy to do by placing some 1x2's between the cage and insulation as spacers. By making a perimeter frame and any internal supports with 1x2's, you will not loss energy to the environment from the airspace created.

Any foil faced insulation will help reduce the energy losses from a cage, but we have found that of all of the types we have studied, the above type has provided the best results. Often times, other types may be more practical. Any foil faced surface will help reduce losses and I therefore think is a good practice to use.
No matter whate type of heat source is being used, foil insulation will help lower the costs to heat the cage. The more the cage can be insulated, the more one will save in energy costs. Insulation almost always pays for itself fairly quickly an is not very expensive to purchase.

One thing to always be carefull of is that putting any metal near or against an electrical source (heat tape, etc.) can become energized by the field created by the source which can result in a shock hazard or even potentially worse.

Bob @ Pro Products
Pro Products

Hey Bob!

I went to Lowe's today and purchased the bubble foil because they did not have the 4X8 sheets of styrene foil. Should I go ahead and use it or return it and look elsewhere. If we're only talking about pennies than I'll use the bubble foil as there's allot in 25'
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DZ
1.0.0 Burm, Moses
0.0.2 Ball, Chico & Chewy (rescue, many scars)
0.2.0 Cats, Merideth & Hannah
1.0.0 Black Chow, Pivo RIP Oct 23
Lotsa fish
1.4.0 Rats
0.2.0 Humans (a little obnoxious though)

The bubble foil doesn't give much in the way of actual R-value due to material type and density, rather it is rated mostly on the reflective value due to the foil facing. The rigid board insulation such as Celotex, Tuff-R and other brands will provide a greater material R-value and the reflective value due to the aluminum facing. With the rigid insulation, you will not only gain from the reflectivity of the foil, but you will also reduce conductive losses as well, so I do recommend the rigid insulation if it is an option. If not, the bubble foil is an alterative to reduce the radiant losses through the bottom of a cage. Bubble foil will be less effective on the side or top of a cage as the fundementals regarding methods of heat loss are different and the rigid insulation would be much more effective if used on these surfaces.
Remember that an airspace has to be provided between the heated surface and the foil face so the energy can reflect off the surface. Most manufactures recommend a minimum of a 3/4" airspace bewteen the heated surface and the foil. If the foil is placed directly against the surface, one will gain little benefit for the effort.

Bob @ Pro Products
Pro Products

The bubble foil you speak of is it sold in home depot or lowes,etc? I am not familiar with it.
Thanks

Sorry I missed this post.

The bubble/foil wrap (most common brand is Refectix) is found at Home Improvement stores. But I've also heard of one or two people finding it sold by the foot at hardware stores. I'd look for it sold by the foot - a full roll would be way too much.

Otherwise, the foil/styrene insulation is sold in 4'x8' sheets so you won't have that much scrap.

And now that I've read Promist's post it does make sense that the foil/styrene insulation would work better. When using a product underneath the floor of a cage you also have some conversion to conductive heat. So the styrene/foil insulation would work better underneath a cage.

My testing of the reflectix has been entirely as a radiant heat blocker to reduce the conversion to conductive heat.
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Current snakes:

1.1 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Silver/Yellow)

3.4 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Green)

2.1 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black)

This was great info. I am going to look for it Friday. I was thinking of something like this .
Thanks.
Malays