# Building a Reptile Outbuilding



## greendale9061 (Aug 26, 2009)

Good Afternoon Fello Herps!


My collection has far out grown my current living quarters, and a few weeks ago, bought a old house ready for full renovation work.


I have put aside about 3-4k to custom build a reptile room (which is an add on to the exsiting building - planning already obtained).

The dimensions are

Lenght: 4.5 m
Width: 2.3 m
Height: 2.4 m

I have a velux window, A back door into the garden and a internal door from the soon to be utility room.


This is what i've discussed with the builders already.

To make electrics on its own consumer unit, and have 1 whole wall dedicated to rows of double socket in plastic wall trunking 1.2m high (like what they use in offices to connect tables with power) This means I don't need a RCD board as it likely to trip the whole unit, and the wires are on display, instead of hidden behind a wall. 

Basically I have 16 tanks to run and each require 2 sockets each for heat & lighting. 

The floor will be concrete, and if my budget allows, I will get underfloor heating, instead of installing a large electric heater for background heat. Maybe tile the floor instead of vynal?

Lighting in the room will be a basic 2 x 4ft strip light.

Walls were going to be block & plaster finish, but I wonder if I will need extra insulation to keep the heat in? 

On the other side of the wall will be a large deep Double bowl sink (I've managed to pick up a second hand catering unit 2m long for under £100) 

Then I will have a worktop about 1m long to put my weighing scales, table top freezer etc and have some cupboards underneath for the substrate, food, nick nacks etc... 


Would be great to hear if anyone has custom built there very own reptile room & if they could give advice or things that must not be overlooked.


Looking forward to giving my exsiting collection of 18 skinks a proper customer built home, with room to expand to another 5-6 more Rarer skinks. 



Thanks Kate


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## plasma234 (Feb 27, 2013)

Hi, 

I have seen these in b&q, might be a solution to your heating.http://www.diy.com/nav/rooms/radiat...ting-Mat-2Sq-M-HHW-M2-10397537?skuId=10878243

Will the velux window let in a lot of heat? If your budget allows you could look at "light tunnels"

Can't wait to see it come together!


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## greendale9061 (Aug 26, 2009)

The room is South West facing, so I doubt it will let sufficent heat from the sun into the room. 

I like to b&q underfloor heating, thats the type I was thinking off. On a roll, just need to stick it underneath tiles and attached it to a thermostat & been told once its on, it only costs a few pence a day, instead of keep turning on and off a electric panel heater.


Will get some pics up when they have made a start.


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## tarantulamatt (Nov 12, 2009)

ive got a brick shed that's similar size, im getting the funds to convert,
will be interesting to see how you get on!

take care,


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## Uromastyxman (Jan 28, 2009)

insulation is crucial for keeping heat in and out. An air conditioning unit mounted on the wall will also circulate air, keeping it cool if required.

I would also consider finding space for a chest freezer with a metal worktop( glue on your own) as storage for frozen is very handy and a chest freezer will have more space than three table tops, take up less space and use less wattage.

Your building is shallow like my workshop. I keep my animals all on one side as there is no room for cages on both sides. Make sure you give yourself space to move around as it is a real pain to keep moving stuff just so you can walk from one end of the building to the other.

Keep your essential items stored in one place (temp gun, pens, scissors, screwdriver ect ect) as searching all over the place just to do a simple task like changing a plug becomes a time consuming pain.

Have a good sized bin that can be stored out of the main thoroughfare in the room so it is not a hindrance, small bins take up less space but are a pain.

Make the decision to have hot water piped in directly from the house or run it on a small cost effective immersion heater, this is personal choice and is usually dependant on how far the hot water has to run from the house.

Storage is important, but storing tons of crap in draws often means you spend ages pulling draws out looking for a small item like a fuse. I have learned to keep storage simple to save time.

Keep spare cages or rubs ready for housing animals temporarily when cleaning them out. I have rubs everywhere and they take up loads of space cluttering up my work surfaces.

Insulation must be done at the beginning as it is difficult if not impossible to do once the animals are in. If you don't you can end up with overheating in the summer and temperatures dropping too low in the winter. I cannot stress the importance of insulation enough.

In a nutshell, the more organised you are the easier your reptile house will be to run as it will be more time efficient.

Good luck. Could you post some pictures when you've got it moving.:

Cheers 

Andy :2thumb:


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## Dan Bristow (Jan 12, 2008)

Are you not having rcd's on these sockets at all then?


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## GECKO MICK (Jun 6, 2012)

Did my own a few monthes back.Check my threads.look forward to see how this one progresses.:2thumb:


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## greendale9061 (Aug 26, 2009)

Thanks for replying to this thread.


Right I've sorted out the final bits, before they start digging the foundations.

The room will be made of block, with a 70mm cavity filled with i think he said cellotex. This apparently give a good thermo rating? The outside skin will be red brick.

The inside wall will be plastered like a normal wall. I have managed to get in hot water underfloor heating, as my boiler & hot water will be housed in the next room. I will have hot water available too.

As to the electrics - Not 100% what it all means, but here I go trying to explain, as the electrian did to me.

I need the room to be separate from the house - so it will have its own consummer unit, which will be divided into tanks.

The wiring is to be visable - ie. hiden behind commerical style wall trucking.
I will have 1 whole wall dedicated to about 20 double sockets to accomodate all the tanks.

The sparky said, If 1 tank heating fails, it won't trip all the tanks, just 1, so he said RCD units won't be needed as this increases the chance of a failure.

He explained it does work out more expensive this way, but it reduced the chances of having the whole room with no power instead of just issolating the tank that tripped.

As for water - I have a double commercial sink unit in Stainless Steal with storage underneath

The worktop on the other side will only be about 400mm wide, so will be wall mounting a little table top freezer in the corner, so I can still use the space underneath. I will have 1x1000 wall unit for storage for bits.

As for Air Con - That is not in my budget, so I'm hoping leaving the velux windows open will allow enough coolling. I have also asked for 2 ventilation brick to be put in that lead to outside.

Total price - Materials - £1959 (including the back door,window and sink)
Labour - £1500

I have allow uo to £4k in case anything crops up.


Monday is the big start


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## Dan Bristow (Jan 12, 2008)

I obviously don't know exactly what is happening electric wise but it seems to me that the electrician is feeding a new fuse board in your new room from the old fuse board off of a mcb that isn't rcd protected? He is then running all the wires from the new fuse board in surface mounted conduit/trunking so as to make it 'visable' thus not requiring an rcd?
This,if the cable from the existing board to the new board is either visible or mechanically protected is considered to meet regulations. The problem is what you have plugged into it. 
Mcb's are used to protect the circuit from short circuit and overload where as rcds are there to protect against faults caused by earth leakage. Now since you have animals in the cages with heaters and lights rcds would protect them against electric shock and also help protect against any faults which may cause fires. A simple way to incorporate rcd protection in this type of set up so only one double socket trips if an earth fault occurs is to do exactly what you are doing but change all the double sockets for individually protected rcd sockets( the rcd is built into the socket themselves).
Well worth the protection they give. Alternatively get the electrician to use rcbos which are a mcb and rcd combined. Use say 4 of these in your new fuse board, feeding 5 double sockets off each one. Then if an earth fault/overload/short corcuit does occur you would trip only 5 double sockets which as the other 15 will still be on plus the room heater it wouldn't hurt the animals in question until you sorted the problem and got the power back on
Just food for thought anyway
Dan


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## 39761 (Sep 3, 2009)

any up dates plz with pic:2thumb:


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