Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am having a rental office built for snakes; the outer wall is brick with no natural light. The room has an independent Frigidaire thermostat and I am thinking of setting up an ordinary lamp on an electronic timer with a grow-light bulb to simulate daylight for the entire room. Would it be wise to use the climate controls to eliminate the need for heating devices, in which case should I visit twice a day to change from day to night temps or just leave it on a constant middle temperature as you would at home? Here are some problems I’ve had with rental places before... 1. A heat lamp with timer directly over the tank fried a corn snake, not because it had no cool place to go but because it didn’t have the sense to move. 2. I had to give up tropicals, keeping temperates only now with room-temperature brumation and incubation. This place is much closer to me so I may have more options again.
PS- Not hoping for an “I like lamps” vs. “I prefer pads” discussion, they tend to eclipse the facts.

Easy way: heat whole room to about 82 for colubrids. Actually works well for general keeping experience, even if it is limiting.

More complex way: Keep room at more of a "room temp" below 78 deg, then have a heater on each cage. This requires thermostats on cages - at least one tstat for a few cages, unless it is the exact same heater device, like a strip of heat tape, then do a whole row or two (do not exceed the wattage rating of the tstat - actually best to go no more than 70% of rated wattage = longer life).

Best way I know of:
Oil filled radiator room heater. Relatively inexpensive, heats very well and gently, does not cycle much, you can easily use a Johnson or Ranco thermostat as a backup thermostat in case of overtemp. That is how I would do it. Safe, easy. You could do exotics with that setup if you wanted.

Thank you Mark, sage advice.