# Well what we all predicted would happen is now happening



## Malc (Oct 27, 2009)

With the ever increasing costs of energy we saw a flood of for sale adverts appear as people were trying to reduce their collections as the high cost of electricity was having an impact. Now we're seeing reptiles being dumped 

BBC News


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## Debbie1962 (Dec 5, 2008)

This is not good.


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## Andy Bunn (Feb 9, 2020)

I would never dump my pets because of rising energy costs. We can always find a solution that's better than dumping pets.


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## Reptile girl123 (5 mo ago)

Dumping pets is wrong and crule just like killing animals just because there is no room in a shelter this needs to be stopped


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## Andy Bunn (Feb 9, 2020)

Maybe it would be better if breeders of all animals didn't flood the pet trade so that there weren't so many people buying animals for cheap with no long term commitment to their up keep.


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## Reptile girl123 (5 mo ago)

Andy Bunn said:


> Maybe it would be better if breeders of all animals didn't flood the pet trade so that there weren't so many people buying animals for cheap with no long term commitment to their up keep.


I like that idea andy


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## Reptile girl123 (5 mo ago)

Reptile girl123 said:


> I like that idea andy


Sorry I get very defensive when it comes to animals.....the only reason why I don't work at an animal shelter is because I can't stand animals being put down because they have been there for too long it makes me sick


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## Malc (Oct 27, 2009)

Andy Bunn said:


> Maybe it would be better if breeders of all animals didn't flood the pet trade so that there weren't so many people buying animals for cheap with no long term commitment to their up keep.


That's not the cause here. The cost of heating the enclosures has almost tripled here in the UK and it will get worse. The average house would receive an electric bill of around £1800 pa, now if predictions come true that will be £6000 come January next year. People can't afford to keep them, reptile markets are flooded with reptiles for sale, some being given away. But no one is buying as unless you are in a sector where the increasing cost of living can be absorbed is buying due to the costs in keeping. Rescue centres are full and having to come up with various ways to raise money as their running costs have jumped up considerably. - So expect to see lots of reports of reptiles being dumped or found abandoned.


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## MHopkins (Jun 22, 2021)

Snake owner dumped three pythons outside school over high electricity bill
More of the same. words fail me.


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## NickN (11 mo ago)

Absolutely horrendous outlook I fear, following today's price cap announcement and the growing consensus of prediction that this could nearly double again next year.
My electric bill went from £70 to £120, will be £230 in October and potentially £450 per month next year. With no pay rise at my job for three years and counting.
I would never dump any animal, ever, but one does wonder what will happen when inevitably everywhere becomes full to bursting. And the risk that some rescue centres themselves cannot afford to continue, too.


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## Central Scotland Reptiles (Nov 23, 2008)

Dumping animals - any animal - is absolutely abhorrent.


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## Malc (Oct 27, 2009)

Central Scotland Reptiles said:


> Dumping animals - any animal - is absolutely abhorrent.


I agree, but when people see them as a mill stone around their necks, not able to give them away, even to a rescue centre that is already bursting then they see dumping as the only way out, hoping that some kind person finds them and looks after them. The one good factor is that being summer time, with warmer nights there is more chance that tropical species of snakes survive.


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## Malum Argenteum (5 mo ago)

With due respect to the husbandry beliefs of readers here, it may be prudent -- considering all the factors and effects -- to consider alternative care guidelines that are more energy efficient and recommend those to keepers whose financial situation might make those guidelines the only possible alternative. 

For reference, my reptile room uses roughly 500kwh a month for enclosure heating and lighting for over 100 animals, a moderately sized incubator and two small aquariums. Room heating and AC are tied to the central HVAC, so this may be a difference. 

I understand the reasons why minimal care guidelines are not palatable to many keepers, but they are in my opinion a better alternative than the dumping of animals into an environment where they'll suffer and die or some may become established and invasive. 

Perhaps given the extreme situation in the UK setting up a 'energy efficient care' subforum here might be of some use to some keepers in figuring out ways to help them to keep their pets.

Just my 2 cents on possible solutions.


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## Malc (Oct 27, 2009)

Malum Argenteum said:


> With due respect to the husbandry beliefs of readers here, it may be prudent -- considering all the factors and effects -- to consider alternative care guidelines that are more energy efficient and recommend those to keepers whose financial situation might make those guidelines the only possible alternative.
> 
> For reference, my reptile room uses roughly 500kwh a month for enclosure heating and lighting for over 100 animals, a moderately sized incubator and two small aquariums. Room heating and AC are tied to the central HVAC, so this may be a difference.
> 
> ...


Interesting... so you're using 16kw/h a day for 100 reptiles. That works out to just over £8 per day (£253 pm) plus standing charge when the new rates in the UK take effect form 1st October, so around £2.50 per reptile, per month which is quite good in the scheme of things. By comparison I'm using approx 13kw/h a day running a mat and nine CHE's in 10 enclosures, works out about £4.20 per snake at the new rate. But then you need to factor in the cost of your HVAC system which is contributing to heating the room.

Part of the problem however is a lot of people lack the ability or practicality to have a dedicated well insulated reptile room, and keep them in vivariums in bedrooms or lounges. Also here in the UK keeping tropical boa's and pythons on mats isn't practical and may put the snakes health at risk. I'm having to do this to reduce my running costs, but will monitor the animals behaviour, especially as winter draws in and the ambient room temperature overnight drops.

Maybe the forum owners could add a sub forum section for suggestions, but it may well be of little use as other than suggesting using mats in vivs or switching to rack / tub systems there is little else that can be suggested?


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## Malum Argenteum (5 mo ago)

For what it is worth, my reptile room is in a basement and is not well insulated; roughly half my vivs back up against uninsulated or very lightly insulated poured concrete walls that have ~55F surface temps throughout much of the year. But you're right in that indoor ambient temps are almost always more moderate here in North America.



Malc said:


> Maybe the forum owners could add a sub forum section for suggestions, but it may well be of little use as other than suggesting using mats in vivs or switching to rack / tub systems there is little else that can be suggested?


There's also a possible discussion to be had about the relative tradeoffs between different radiant heat sources -- those that don't emit visible light are more efficient heat producers, but there might be advantages to RHPs over CHEs (I don't know, but it is the sort of thing that might be investigated). Discussions of viv materials might be relevant there (glass vs wood vs PVC), and then yes the discussion of tub housing (which is certainly the most heat retentive design). 

Some more naturalistic/bioactive strategies use more lighting than different housing options, and that's a not insubstantial use of electricity. Now it may be that many keepers will resist changing those strategies, but like I mentioned anything is worth at least considering given the apparent increasingly common alternative reported in this thread.

There's also stuff that likely few people have thought about, and might not until dedicated and pointed discussions are had about the issue. That was the thought behind my suggestion, anyway -- simply to bounce ideas around and see if anything can be figured out. I'm certain that I myself haven't thought these considerations through; my electricity is about $0.11/kwh, and there is very little cultural pressure against wasting power here so in general we don't think about this too hard. Sad, but true.


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## Swindinian (May 4, 2020)

Malum Argenteum said:


> With due respect to the husbandry beliefs of readers here, it may be prudent -- considering all the factors and effects -- to consider alternative care guidelines that are more energy efficient and recommend those to keepers whose financial situation might make those guidelines the only possible alternative.
> 
> For reference, my reptile room uses roughly 500kwh a month for enclosure heating and lighting for over 100 animals, a moderately sized incubator and two small aquariums. Room heating and AC are tied to the central HVAC, so this may be a difference.
> 
> ...


To be fair to Malc, he has posted a lot on a number of discussions and shared details of his trial tests, in this forum.

Potential ideas to consider
Congregating housing into one room
Stacking vivs
Insulating
Reviewing heat sources
Using gas central heating to supplement ambient room temps and lesson electric usage.
Day/night stats or timers to switch off heat at night
Reducing photo period for lighting, or switching off for a day here or there.


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## Malc (Oct 27, 2009)

Malum Argenteum said:


> There's also a possible discussion to be had about the relative tradeoffs between different radiant heat sources -- those that don't emit visible light are more efficient heat producers, but there might be advantages to RHPs over CHEs (I don't know, but it is the sort of thing that might be investigated). Discussions of viv materials might be relevant there (glass vs wood vs PVC), and then yes the discussion of tub housing (which is certainly the most heat retentive design).


All of which have been discussed (some at length) on the forum, and with the search function its (normally) easy to locate previous posts discussing options.

Most of the UK would love to be on 11cents (around 10p) per Kw/h... if the current forecast is to be believed we might be charged £1 per Kw/h by April next year.....so things will only become worse.

With regards to alternative heating methods, at the end of the day it doesn't matter if the owner uses an 100w ceramic heater, 100w spot lamp, 100w heat panel, or a 100w DHP.... its still 100w. 

Exercise: Would it be cheaper to use gas central heating to heat one room

To run a gas powered central heating system to heat a single room is one idea as mentioned above. But it may require some re-work of the plumbing to zone off the single radiator in the room, so that a separate thermostat can be used and isolated from the rest of the house. But there will also be some demand on the electricity to run the central heating pump, which will consume on average 75w /h, or 1800w per day. At the new rate in October, that is roughly 94p a day (£342 pa). So it is was possible to move all the vivs into one room, rezone the heating system, and run the boiler 24/7/365, and convert the vivs to mats the annual cost for just the electric would be approx £1139 (£795 for mats + £342 for the pump) total based on Octobers rates (excl standing charges). Compared to a rough cost of £2890 if I continues to run 10x CHE and 1 x mat. - that's a saving of £1751

However in addition to that figure would be the cost of the gas, but that is going to be very difficult to estimate as we have no way to know the daily consumption of gas to run one radiator, and in the summer time, if we get similar summers to this one, there could be days where the ambient room temperature exceeds that which is set on the thermostat. Would it cost £1700 to run a single radiator 24/7/365 ? - most boilers are around 25Kw, so lets assume it's on for 6 hours and off for 18 hours to make maths easy. That is 150Kw a day, or 54,750 kw/h per year. From October gas (UK) is going to be 15p / KWh and we get £8212..... Now even if we allowed for the warm days, and nights when it wasn't needed, lest say just it ran for 1/3rd the time (ie four months of the year) that is still £2737pa cost (ex standing charges). So if we add in the cost of electricity for running the mats and the pumps it makes a total of £3876 give or take.

So in this crude exercise, running a gas powered central heating system to heat one room and have mats in all but one viv would cost me £986 more per year then if I left them as is with Ceramic heaters in all but one viv.

OK there is one big issue here. It's not precise and based on assumptions. Take the logic and figures as a rough basis rather than an exact factually correct figure. In the real world data can be totally different to the estimated / guestimated results. But I think the assumptions used above are fair and even erring on the cautious side so the real cost would be higher. All I know is regardless of what methods we use to keep the reptiles comfortable it's going to cost a lot more.


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## Swindinian (May 4, 2020)

Lol
That was another good bit of analysis Malc. 👏👏👏

I had heard that switching up a 100 w ceramic for a 50w DHP could work to provide more efficient heating at a lower energy consumption. Not sure about the physics behind the claim.


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## Malc (Oct 27, 2009)

Swindinian said:


> Lol
> That was another good bit of analysis Malc. 👏👏👏
> 
> I had heard that switching up a 100 w ceramic for a 50w DHP could work to provide more efficient heating at a lower energy consumption. Not sure about the physics behind the claim.


It really depends on the efficiency of the DHP compared to the CHE. My crude maths suggest that if the DHP was twice as efficient as the CHE, then yes you would get the same heat output from the DHP as the 100w CHE, but at half the power consumption. In reality I doubt that would be the case, and from what I understand about the technology, DHP don't warm the air like a CHE, or at least to the same degree, but use the IR wavelengths (like the mats) to penetrate the tissue and warm the animal that way.

As with most claims they are often conducted under lab conditions (like car MPG for fuel consumption at a steady 56mph !) but are way off in the real world.


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## Malc (Oct 27, 2009)

Swindinian said:


> Lol
> That was another good bit of analysis Malc. 👏👏👏


We'll see how close those calculations are to reality now I've purchased a power meter as detailed here


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## harry python (Sep 21, 2015)

Swindinian said:


> Lol
> That was another good bit of analysis Malc. 👏👏👏
> 
> I had heard that switching up a 100 w ceramic for a 50w DHP could work to provide more efficient heating at a lower energy consumption. Not sure about the physics behind the claim.


Fairly simple physics and all down to the watt power rating. A 50 watt appliance will use half electricity compared to a 100 watt appliance. However, main question is will the 50 watt device be enough to warm the enclosure to the optimum temperature?


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## ian14 (Jan 2, 2008)

Well the current suggestion is that the government will be freezing energy bills at £2500 AND honour the £400 winter payment for all household. Which in effect means no price rise.


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## Malc (Oct 27, 2009)

ian14 said:


> Well the current suggestion is that the government will be freezing energy bills at £2500 AND honour the £400 winter payment for all household. Which in effect means no price rise.


It will be interesting to see if all the measures put in place earlier this year are honoured and the cap is frozen, but just to be clear, that cap is based on an average household use to set the cost of the kw/h rate. It doesn't mean that if you used £3000 worth of 'leckky at whatever kw/h you will be let off £500 and only pay £2500...


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## ian14 (Jan 2, 2008)

Malc said:


> It will be interesting to see if all the measures put in place earlier this year are honoured and the cap is frozen, but just to be clear, that cap is based on an average household use to set the cost of the kw/h rate. It doesn't mean that if you used £3000 worth of 'leckky at whatever kw/h you will be let off £500 and only pay £2500...


The cap is the maximum any energy company can charge you so if it is frozen at £2500 then no residential property will pay over that.


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## NickN (11 mo ago)

With the utmost respect @ian14 that's not how it works, unfortunately the media bandy these cap figures around as if they are gospel but it's not the case.
What it means is, that for the average household who was using, say £1300 of electricity a year now, the price per unit increases to the point where to use that same average amount in October it would increase to a cost of £2500.
The cap is a cap on the unit price (kWh) and not the annual bill. So the cap is predicted to rise to 52p per unit (per kWh). Would be a lot easier if the media explained it that way!
And therefore a high user who is already paying £2500 a year NOW would see their bill potentially rise to £4800 a year, roughly.


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## Malc (Oct 27, 2009)

ian14 said:


> The cap is the maximum any energy company can charge you so if it is frozen at £2500 then no residential property will pay over that.


Sorry Ian, but on this occasion you have got it wrong



> The energy price cap sets out the maximum amount energy companies are allowed to charge households for each unit of energy they use (the kilowatt hour or kWh on your bills).
> The cap also limits the standing charge - the fee customers pay for being connected to the energy grid.
> The increase in bills to £3,549 - or £2,500 as is now expected - *is not a limit on the amount households will actually pay for their energy*. Instead, it is an estimate of what a typical household would pay after the price cap changes.
> Big energy users would pay more, and people who use less energy would pay less.











What is the energy price cap and what will happen to bills?


The energy bill support package will continue after April, but will be less generous.



www.bbc.co.uk





One of may websites that could be quoted.


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## ian14 (Jan 2, 2008)

NickN said:


> With the utmost respect @ian14 that's not how it works, unfortunately the media bandy these cap figures around as if they are gospel but it's not the case.
> What it means is, that for the average household who was using, say £1300 of electricity a year now, the price per unit increases to the point where to use that same average amount in October it would increase to a cost of £2500.
> The cap is a cap on the unit price (kWh) and not the annual bill. So the cap is predicted to rise to 52p per unit (per kWh). Would be a lot easier if the media explained it that way!
> And therefore a high user who is already paying £2500 a year NOW would see their bill potentially rise to £4800 a year, roughly.


I get that.
However, if the average/typical bill will rise from £1971 to £2500 with the unit price frozen, AND factoring in the £400 per household payment, the overall th average household bill will mean an extra £129 a year to pay. A vast improvement on what was expected.
What I cannot get my head around is how the energy suppliers are making such vastly increased profits. I get that they are businesses and there to make profit, but when they are making the consumer pay the increased profit margin due to higher cost price, surely they are engineering their own collapse? Because when they find that people are not paying bills, or even worse cannot afford to top up the prepayment meters they install as a means to recover those debts what then? They will lose masses of income. When you consider BP publically stated that they had made so much profit they didn't know how to use it, surely they could look to swallow some of the increased wholesale price.


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## NickN (11 mo ago)

Oh absolutely the £400 will help substantially, as will the freeze at current levels. There's a reptile/exotics shop in Crewe which was looking to have to close its doors for good in October, maybe now they won't have to.
And like you, I find the whole thing very bizarre and quite disgraceful, when we are potentially talking about deaths occurring due to some being unable to both eat and heat.


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## Malc (Oct 27, 2009)

ian14 said:


> What I cannot get my head around is how the energy suppliers are making such vastly increased profits. I get that they are businesses and there to make profit, but when they are making the consumer pay the increased profit margin due to higher cost price, surely they are engineering their own collapse?


Ian, it gets really complicated and this is not an exact description but how it was one explained on a TV program. Its because they are split into divisional businesses so to speak. British gas has a division the prospects, drills and supplies gas, It also has a wholesale business that buys gas from the division that supplies the gas (and other sources). It then sells that gas to the supply division. The supply division then sell the gas to the consumer. The business that's making the billions of £ profit is the wholesale division because that is where the prices are set ( the actual costs for getting it out of the ground hasn't really changed, but as the demand is high due to Putins control of the supplies out of Russia, that forces the price up), the resale division that sells it to the customers makes a small profit (in the millions) in comparison. Due to the organisation structure any windfall tax a government imposes is done against the resale division, thus British gas avoid a big pay out.. Most large companies are structures this way. It thus makes it easier to segregate those sections making huge profits from the ones that are making a loss, and no doubt has tax implications too. 

The bottom line is that regardless of what measures the Government put in place it will be the customers that end up repaying the shot fall. As a country 45% of gas comes from our own resources, so we're not totally dependant on supplies from other countries, and don't find ourselves held to ransom like Germany and a few other EU countries who get a high percentage of their gas from Russia.

What I find disgraceful is that a lot of the proposed assistance plans are for every household in the UK. I'm sure that there are a lot of people who's lifestyle and circumstances are such that they don't have to worry what the cap is, and the money given to them would be better off diverted to people at the low income end where it is needed more. I do agree with you and Nick that this year there will be people who die as a direct result of this fuel poverty as they lack the funds to both heat and eat.


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## Swindinian (May 4, 2020)

Another point; who remembers those large holding vessels which used to store liquid gas? Can’t remember how many I saw that have since been decommissioned and demolished.

I suspect we don’t now have the capacity to stockpile and store natural gas in liquid form???










Gasometer?
used to rise and fall depending on amount contained.


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## Malc (Oct 27, 2009)

Yup, 30-40 years ago every large town had a cluster of them.. all gone now...or turned into accommodation


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## ian14 (Jan 2, 2008)

Yes, I remember those very well.
Malc, thanks for the explanation, I've sort of got my head around it. Still quite woozy after an op yesterday so I'll have another read tomorrow.
Ultimately, then, until the UK invests in its own supplies or energy source such as nuclear, we are screwed.


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## Malc (Oct 27, 2009)

ian14 said:


> Yes, I remember those very well.
> Malc, thanks for the explanation, I've sort of got my head around it. Still quite woozy after an op yesterday so I'll have another read tomorrow.
> Ultimately, then, until the UK invests in its own supplies or energy source such as nuclear, we are screwed.


Hope the op wasn't anything serious and you make a speedy recovery.

It's a very simplistic explanation, in reality its probably a lot more complicated. It was one one of the news reports trying to explain why any windfall tax that labour would impose would not be based on the 1.34 billion pound it made in June. This news item may explain it



> British Gas owner Centrica said adjusted operating profit for the six months ending in June rose to *£1.34bn* from £262m a year earlier. The rise in profits came from the company's nuclear and oil and gas business, rather than from the British Gas energy supply business which performed much worse











British Gas owner Centrica and Shell see profits soar as bills rise


British Gas owner Centrica and Shell report huge profits, as UK households face even higher energy bills.



www.bbc.co.uk





Most large companies are structured like this. If one company under the main umbrella is making a huge profit and liable for a huge tax demand, they move it to other companies within the umbrella that are not performing so well....that's how Amazon and the like make such huge profits but pay little in UK taxes.

Anyway this thread is going way off target and probably braking a few rules as it's dipping toes into political waters...

Get well soon Ian


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## killwater (Feb 21, 2021)

Just two notes on the costs. 
1. Energy used for heating enclosures is not wasted - it heats your home once heat escapes enclosure and thus decreases the heating bill. For the same reason incandescent light bulb has 100% efficiency in the winter - 5% goes to light 95% to heating.
2. Regarding MAC's estimate. I think you made an error assuming the CH pump works 24/7/365. It only works periodically when the thermostat triggers heating.

3x3x2.4 room, uninsulated with 2 external walls needs a radiator of 0.825kW to heat from 7.7C (England average yearly temperature) to 28C.








Heat Loss Calculator | BTU Calculator


Use the heat loss calculator to estimate the power of a heater needed to keep your room at a comfortable temperature.




www.omnicalculator.com





This is simplified as no windows are taken into account and you will have some loss through the internal walls as there is 8C differential. This heats your other rooms though so can be omitted (apart for a month or two in the summer).

Assuming it works 24h a day it would give you 19.8kWh per day and 7227kWh over a year.
Using 10p/kWh (new energy cap on gas) it comes to £722.7 per year.

You can add a small amount for the pump but as your boiler has 24kW it will heat the 1.5kW typical radiator in no time and switch off unless if you are heating the home as well (or the domestic water) but then adding it to reptile room heating is not really fair.

Still plenty of assumptions but should be a bit more precise.

Now instead of redoing your heating zoning you can install thermostatic valves on all radiators and set them to 20C in all rooms apart from the retpile room where you set 28deg and use dual zone thermostat to fire the boiler.

If your house is insulated (cavity insulation, floor insulation and ceiling insulation) it drops by 50-60% roughly.

If you have a dedicated reptile room the best investment would be to increase the insulation to stop the heat from escaping. Internal wall insulation is a way to go but one has to be carefull to not create damp issues. Effectively it would be like creating a walk in fridge but you need trickle vents in the widow and a slot under the door to provide ventilation. I doubt you will mange to do it under £350 though (potential yearly saving).

Also big southern windows heat the room nicely throughout most of the day so the enclousures can be moved there to save some money during the day.



Malc said:


> To run a gas powered central heating system to heat a single room is one idea as mentioned above. But it may require some re-work of the plumbing to zone off the single radiator in the room, so that a separate thermostat can be used and isolated from the rest of the house. But there will also be some demand on the electricity to run the central heating pump, which will consume on average 75w /h, or 1800w per day. At the new rate in October, that is roughly 94p a day (£342 pa). So it is was possible to move all the vivs into one room, rezone the heating system, and run the boiler 24/7/365, and convert the vivs to mats the annual cost for just the electric would be approx £1139 (£795 for mats + £342 for the pump) total based on Octobers rates (excl standing charges). Compared to a rough cost of £2890 if I continues to run 10x CHE and 1 x mat. - that's a saving of £1751
> 
> However in addition to that figure would be the cost of the gas, but that is going to be very difficult to estimate as we have no way to know the daily consumption of gas to run one radiator, and in the summer time, if we get similar summers to this one, there could be days where the ambient room temperature exceeds that which is set on the thermostat. Would it cost £1700 to run a single radiator 24/7/365 ? - most boilers are around 25Kw, so lets assume it's on for 6 hours and off for 18 hours to make maths easy. That is 150Kw a day, or 54,750 kw/h per year. From October gas (UK) is going to be 15p / KWh and we get £8212..... Now even if we allowed for the warm days, and nights when it wasn't needed, lest say just it ran for 1/3rd the time (ie four months of the year) that is still £2737pa cost (ex standing charges). So if we add in the cost of electricity for running the mats and the pumps it makes a total of £3876 give or take.


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