Reptile & Amphibian Forums

First off, thanks to all those who replied to my post below regarding frustrations with my newly built snake rack. I am glad I experienced problems now prior to actually needing the rack for my snakes. I will likely upgrade to 11 inch wide heat tape and run a second thermostat to control it in series.

Anyway, I wanted some advice on herp room construction, heating, etc, etc. Once again, for those not familiar, I moved into a new home roughly 10 weeks ago and I’ve been struggling off and on with heating my herps in the new house. I have a variety of colubrids (mostly n.american), a few misc pythons, and several locale boas. My herps thrived in my old house b/c my basement was finished and insulated well-enough for me to control heat/temps. I live near Phila. area so my troubles are obviously with heating a room (vs. cooling a room down like in southern states).

Anyway, I am about to start finishing off a room in my basement for my snakes…to better control the ambient temps so that I can more accurately control surface/cage temps. I bought metal studs to frame it out (I am a teacher and have some time off from school this week). I have all the necessary tools and will probably take a few weeks to complete this project from start to finish….but wanted to do things right the first time around. I also had the builder install rough-ins in our basement for plumbing, which will be a huge help down the road once its all finished. And as far as electric, I planned on adding several 20amp circuits to accommodate at least 20 outlets for now with the possibility for more down the road.

Currently, temps in my basement are around 65 degrees. I planned on tapping into the duct work to run heat into the new herp room during the winter months. I also planned on adding a damper to cutoff a/c and prevent cold air from flowing into the room during the summer. As far as insulation, I talked w/a few contractors who told me to go with the standard 3.5” insulation with an R-factor of 13…which I believe is recommended b/c of the fact that it’s a basement and moisture is always a concern and insulation too thick could develop mold or be less effective if jammed into a standard 2X4 framed wall. I also will seal the walls (which are poured concrete) with concrete sealant.

Overall, I plan on trying to heat the whole room enough to minimize the need to heat individual cages (at least for the colubrids….the other, more exotic snakes would still be provided with additional heating). The room will probably be somewhere between 250-300 sq feet. I have a much larger area at my disposal BUT I don’t plan on growing my collection any larger than 70-80 snakes at this point and I would benefit from a smaller space to heat rather than a larger space...besides, I could always increase size later down the road but for now I really want to setup this room. I planned on using a space heater with an additional added on thermostat (not relying on the built-in ones). I’m not really sure if I have any questions in this message…but maybe you could offer any add’l suggestions or advice in case I’m forgetting something. I am trying to drastically reduce costs b/c I have a baby on the way this spring so money is/will be tight so I can’t implement some ideas I originally had. Anyway, thoughts, comments, criticisms???
Sincerely,
Jason

if you build and insulate then 11" flexwatt would be overkill in my opinion,even if it is more "manly" as some have stated.like i've mentioned earlier my set up is similar to yours,right now my room temp is 68 degrees and my rack (10 level) on the 3rd level from the top the 3" 6 watt heat tape is 94 degrees,which makes the warmer levels about 88 degrees (where i keep the balls) and the other levels about 85 degrees (where the colobrids are kept).i'm beginning to think that the insulation on the rack itself is working better than i thought.anyway if you go with the 11" i would use some kind of "backup" because if the thermostat failed it would fry your animals.please keep us posted as things progress.have fun!

Now that sounds like a room, can I move in? How bout just comming and helping put it all together..lol.. The tstat on those room hearter are a wafer thermo and suck you right for wanting a backup. As far as the 11" being overkill it may or may not be. If I were you I would go with your instinct as it seem you know what you have in mind and sounds to me it will work without a hitch. As long as you are not using cheap tstats I would not worry about a failure. Possible as is anything in life but not probable...
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www.mgreptiles.com
CBB Herps and Heating Supplies

Well...I was told by someone at Home Depot that this step of finishing off a basement is easy. "its important to seal the concrete before finishing off a basement," I was told.

Well, I was skeptical since I highly doubt that any builder finishes off a basement and actually spends the time and money to do use sealant...at least they didn't in my old house and the basement was fine.

However, I thought 'hmm...maybe I could do it'....WRONG.... I just got done splattering Super Thoroseal EVERYWHERE. Its not so 'super'.lol. I need to maintain some sort of sense of humor since this has to be the single messiest project I've undertaken and its only the 1st step towards a finished herp room. Luckily I've only lost about $35 so far with the cost of the sealant and a few ruined brushes.

Anyone have any other recommendations for a sealant or barrier prior to framing out the basement?

I guess we were typing at the same time.

But from your previous post it sounded like your were not framing out the exterior walls, only sealing them. But now that my AM coffee is kicking in I understand you meant you were sealing them prior to framing them out. Sorry for the confusion.

Unfortunately that is one step I've not researched yet. I'm hoping to leave my poured walls bare, but my room will be in a garage where having a finished look is unimportant.
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Current snakes:

0.2 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Silver/Yellow)

3.3 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Green)

2.1 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black)

3.3 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black & Tan)

Hi Jason,

>>I am a teacher and have some time off from school this week.

Could you e-mail me about this off-board? Just click on my blue-highlighted name in this post.

Otherwise, I've clipped out your comments I felt most important.

>>I live near Phila. area so my troubles are obviously with heating a room (vs. cooling a room down like in southern states).

>>I planned on tapping into the duct work to run heat into the new herp room during the winter months. I also planned on adding a damper to cutoff a/c and prevent cold air from flowing into the room during the summer.

>>I planned on using a space heater with an additional added on thermostat (not relying on the built-in ones).

I can see only one reason to run your existing HVAC system into your herp room. That reason is if you're interested in having the room add to the value of your house. Since you don't need cooling I just can't see having the dust and allergens associated with an HVAC system being pumped in with your snakes.

To save money now I'd leave it so that running HVAC is possible down the road. For now just heat the room with an oil-filled, radiator style heater and a Johnson Controls thermostat. Maybe even go with a double thermostat design for safety.

I'm building a snake room in the garage next month and plan to use ProProducts ProHeat Radiant Panels to heat the room. Believe it or not they do make them that big. I'm sure it will be expensive but it happens to be in my area that a 50% kilowatt-hour reduction is offered when using this style of heat.

If my snake room was in the basement I'd add radiant floor heat. This actually adds value to a home over having HVAC in a basement. I could go on and on about this but won't go into the details. The one caveat against this is if having basement AC in Philly is beneficial for humidity reasons.

>>As far as insulation, I talked w/a few contractors who told me to go with the standard 3.5” insulation...

If you use primarily radiant heat you will also benefit from a reflective component in the walls you build. At least the central ones. There are ways to incorporate Reflectix insulation into a normal studded wall. Something I'll be doing.

>>I also will seal the walls (which are poured concrete) with concrete sealant.

So you are not going to frame out the exterior walls in the basement? If so, a couple of comments:

This suggests to me that adding value to your home is not currently a priority. No problem with that. But it really puts a strike againsts running HVAC into your basement. Again, specific humidity issues in Philly may change that.

I'm still researching this myself, but it sounds like poured concrete walls work well in conjunction with radiant heat sources. The radiant heat sources warms them up and they help distribute heat evenly around the room. Basically R values really aren't what's important here, but I won't go into that. I'll let you know what I find out exactly.

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Current snakes:

0.2 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Silver/Yellow)

3.3 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Green)

2.1 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black)

3.3 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black & Tan)

>>I'm still researching this myself, but it sounds like poured concrete walls work well in conjunction with radiant heat sources. The radiant heat sources warms them up and they help distribute heat evenly around the room. Basically R values really aren't what's important here, but I won't go into that. I'll let you know what I find out exactly.

Ignore this advice. I did some more research this AM and the mass-influenced R values will be pretty trivial.

It does sound like you should consider insulation with a reflective component. I would go ahead use frame out the walls and use your fiberglass insulation but then sandwich some Reflectix between the drywall and your studs.

I can go into this in more detail when you call me back.

Also, it sounds like basement floors are a huge source of heat loss. I'm considering insulating mine although it will make my project much more complex than needed.
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Current snakes:

0.2 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Silver/Yellow)

3.3 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Green)

2.1 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black)

3.3 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black & Tan)