# Heat Mats



## Malc

Back in the 1990's I used to heat all my vivariums apart from the large 72" x 21" x 21" with heatmats under a 1-2cm wood chip substrate. It was also common to run three vivs off the one stat as well... yeah, totally going against the advice we give out these days. Now most of the snakes I had were N. American rat snakes (Corns, Bairds, Gt Planes etc), but I also had an adult royal which thrived just fine in this set up. However at the time we were living in a modern new built two bed maisonette, and the lounge never really dropped below 20c even in winter, in fact we had more of a problem keeping them cool in summer than warm in winter.

Now with the announcement of ever increasing costs for energy I'm considering changing the heating in 9 of the 11 vivs but am still in two minds, mainly as we now live in a post war end of terrace house that has poor heat retention (despite cavity walls insulation and double glazing). Each viv has its own thermostat so that's not an issue, it's more the fact that all 9 vivs house royals, which we know should have a warm air environment. But this would reduce the electricity consumption from 1100w to 180w / hr (pro rata as a pulse proportional stat is used on each one). Granted it will need a £125 outlay to purchase the mats, but I'm confident that this would be recovered through the savings, especially as the media keeps reporting an increase of £1000 pa each day at the moment !! - But my concerns are the welfare for these snakes.

Now we all know that the mats are designed for wall or roof mounting so the IR they produce is absorbed by the reptile, but having them under 1-2cm of substrate to form a warm area for the snake to warm as I did thirty years ago may be an option as this could produce a layer of warm air just above the substrate.

Whilst not ideal, needs must if I want to keep the collection in these barmy times....


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## Swindinian

Hey Malc, 

I can totally understand the predicament and compromises you are reviewing.
I have used mats inside vivs decades ago (and a year or two ago under a glass viv for supplemental heat), and some backup heat for tubs/rubs.

One concern I heard about mats under substrate is the thermal blocking causing overheating and potential fire?


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## Malc

Swindinian said:


> Hey Malc,
> 
> I can totally understand the predicament and compromises you are reviewing.
> I have used mats inside vivs decades ago (and a year or two ago under a glass viv for supplemental heat), and some backup heat for tubs/rubs.
> 
> One concern I heard about mats under substrate is the thermal blocking causing overheating and potential fire?


Yeah, that is a concern. I may have just been lucky in the past. Its strange that I'm typing this reply on my thread about running the heating, yet at this moment none of the stats are actually running as the temperature in the Viv has maxed out - the room temp is 30.5c (same as outside !!)


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## Swindinian

More likely with the mats you were sufficiently vigilant to avoid it getting overheated.

Yeah, my Hillstream aquarium is not ‘temperate’ at the moment, and my Corns can’t be enjoying the heat.


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## StuG

Malc are your snakes in a separate snake room or a communal living area?


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## Elly66

I had to smile at this thread - yesterday I had to turn off my corn snakes lamp (uva/uvb mercury which provides heat as well)and even the uva/uvb bulb in my Royals viv (still has ceramic heater on thermostat).


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## Malc

StuG said:


> Malc are your snakes in a separate snake room or a communal living area?


They are in individual vivarium's around the house. Four in the lounge, three in the back bedroom, and two belonging to my daughter kept in vivs in her room. So sadly not in a position just heat one room and place them in that, which is where I suspect you were going?

@Elly66 funny enough, at times yesterday evening the controller indicated that the air temp in the four royals vivs, bairds viv and my boa's viv matched / exceeded the set temperature and had shut off the power to the heaters ! - and today is forecast to be warmer ! 

I've opted to switch over the bank of four vivs in the lounge, and the bank of three in the back room to mats for the time being. Two of the vivs upstairs already have 20w mats in them, so I only needed to order five 20w mats last night. I was quite shocked with the prices, but after a bit of shopping around found a stockist retailing 20w (28 x 42 cm) mats with free shipping at a reasonable price - saving around £25 on the total order. I've received the despatch notification so they should be here early next week. I'll let you know how I get on. The ceramics will stay in place, just not connected for now.


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## MrsTim

Hi Malc,

This reply won't be popular, as it doesn't fit with the current "fashion " of keeping, but this it what l do - and l found it suits my snakes ( all corn snakes ) very much, and gives them the most choice.

I live in quite on old, cold house, where heat mats on their own just wouldn't be enough. My snakes are in 4 foot wooden vivs, and I use combination of both heat mats, and 50 W Arcadia UV A flood lights ( these bulbs are brilliant for giving you a hot spot, while also rising the background temperature ) - bulbs are on Evo light dimming stats, with 4 different temperature settings throughout day( warmest at noon ). 

The mats are on 24/7, on pulse stat. The lights are set to only about 6h during winter ( with complete 6 weeks break with no lights mid winter ) and 10 h during summer. During spring and autumn I change the length of the time bulns are on every week, to lenghten or shorten days.

All of the snakes most certainly use the mats, but only some use the basking lights. Only 2 bask directly, the other 5 indirectly by being in a hide near light, or on bench to the side of light.
The vivs are in stacks of 2, and all of the snakes on 2nd floor vivs love to use the belly heat from the bulb in vivs below.

The heat mats are fixed to the bottom of wooden vivs, with pulse stats probe held down in place by light resin hide ( l carve a little grove in side of hide for the probe ). I only put a sprinkling of bedding on top. 

I have recently - before the heatwave - spent time observing how much the snakes use the various heat sources, and what temperature they prefere to keep themselves in. They certainly do use the heat mats, especially after feeding, and some ( the shy ones ) use heatmats for about 80% of their heat needs ( l mean when they want to use heat ) despite having access to basking under cover, too. Surprisingly, the snakes mostly seem to want to be at around 24-25 c - l always read that 28C is their optimal functioning temperature! They use mats, or bask after feeding, at around 28 C. They have warmer spot 30-32 C directly under the bulb, but I have only seen 2 of the boys using that.

Advantages of using heatmats as well as lights: snakes have access to warm area 24/7 ( and they certainly do take advantage of this ) and not just at 1 temperature level. By sitting on top of the hide on the mat, they can sit at about 24 C rather than 28 C in hide, which they sometimes do. By using the mats, l don't have to keep the lights on as long as I would have to, if the lights were the only source of heat, especially in autumn, winter and spring - handy these days for saving electricity, without depriving the snakes of heat.

Disadvantages: as they are fixed to the bottom, l'm having to check that the snakes haven't piled lots of bedding on top of the mat, thus creating a possible hot spot/ fire risk. To be honest, this only happens very rarely, sometimes during mating season when the males are super active. 

If we go away, l always switch the mats off, and just leave the lights, to be on safe side.

I also regularly check the mats by running the infra red thermometer over them, to check they are not developing hots spots anywhere ( as some mats are 10 years + old !) - so far so good ( fingers crossed ).

I'm planning to hopefully eradicate this problem with mats in future- l'm thinking about creating either a hide, or a partial false bottom, with the mats in a ceiling ( perhaps attached to glass ceiling and stat probe fixed ), and so away from any bedding. If the hide had sloping sides, this could also create different temperature levels even within the hide.

On the whole, during the day, my snakes have a choice of many different basking sites and temperatures, either directly under bulb, in various hides to the side and in between, or on heatmats. During night, they always have the mats, or secondary warmish spots on top of hides, or under Cork bark to the side of mat ( warmer air from mat, but not on top of mat itself ) .

As the snakes choose to use the mats, in some cases even when other heat sources and places are available, and over night, I'm certainly keeping the mats in for them.

Hope this ( overlong ) post helped at least a bit.


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## Zincubus

I think my only qualm with heat mats was worrying about the snake urinating over the electrical connection or water spilling over were the wire joined the mat 

I simply covered the electrical ‘joint’ area with loads of hot glue and had zero problems 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro


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## Malc

@MrsTim Thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed post. However you state that you keep Corns, and thus being from a temperate climate can tolerate cooler air temps, making the use of mats very suitable for that species. I more or less keep my Bairds Rat snake in a similar setup.

The concern I have is, as Ian14 has often pointed out, heat mats don't warm the air, so for a tropical species like Royals where in the normal habitat the air temp typically stays above 25C, exposing them to ambient air temps of 18-20c could lead to health issues such as RI. However as mentioned I kept a royal this way for decades without issues, although the ambient temperature was a tad higher !

Anyway, the order has been shipped so once delivered I'll start the installation and see how thing s progress. If need be I could always wire the mats up in pairs and use the last two channels of my thermostat controller to run them and have the ceramics set to maintain 25c over night, with the mats in use 24/7 to provide the hot spot. Granted it won't save as much money as not using the CHEs, but it will have cut their consumption down considerably.


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## MrsTim

You're right Malc, of course. l'm only using this method for temperate zone snakes, wouldn't work for pythons or boas, certainly not in our house. 

There's another thing to take into consideration, apart from the air temperature. Any heavier bodied snake can cause a thermal blocking, even on stated mat, if it sits directly on top of it ( still you probably already know that ). Maybe mounting the mat on the glass mat holder, which is slightly raised, would allow the hot air escape underneath, though l've never used those myself. The thin layer of bedding could work as well, the only problem is that my snakes tend to push any bedding off the mat, anyway.

Mats do heat up the air within the hide that sits on top of them, but that' s about it. Although, before I used bulbs, l managed to raise the air temperature on warm side by adding a second heatmat on the wall on the warm side, but only by a few degrees, and that was only in 15 inch high viv. 

I think your idea of running the ceramics as a back up could work, would be interested to hear the results. 

I was seriously thinking about solar panels, as a back up/ add on, to save on electricity, but this would be massively expensive l guess.


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## Elly66

Reading all this with great interest as currently awaiting delivery of a bigger viv for my Royal. Currently using ceramic and a low heat uva/ uvb bulb ( bulb off at night). The current viv is 3 x 2 x 2, but new one is 5ft long and 3ft high and nearly 3ft deep. I've been thinking of buying a heat panel and will still have a uva/uvb bulb. Hoping a heat panel won't be to expensive to run.

As I'm only currently running 2 vivs, it's not a huge problem and at the most, I'll only be running 3. Imagine those like yourself @Malc, with many vivs are frantically trying to cut costs though.


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## Malc

See this is the thing. These mats are designed to produce the long wave IR so the snake warms up much the same way as the sun's IR would be absorbed. The instructions state that they should be placed on the side / back or roof of the enclosure. The only time the instructions mention placing them underneath is for use with glass tanks. I can't recall how / why we started to place them on the inside of the viv under the substrate.

Yes thermal blocking is an issue with heavy bodied snakes, so careful placement of the probe is needed. It will certainly need some experimentation to come up with a workable solution. @Elly66 there are several members who have far more enclosures than I have, and are using CHE's or 100w spots, who must also be feeling the squeeze with the rising electricity costs. I'm running 1150w (1.15KW) of ceramics all on pulse stats. So a rough estimate its around 13 / 14 Kw per day or 96Kw per week, based on ( (1150w x 24) /2) *7 assuming the heaters are on for 50% of the time. Using the current BG tariff of 27.84p/ kwh that gives me a running cost of £26.72 per week, (£1390 pa) just to run the vivs. When converted to mats and a single CHE the consumption should be ((330w x 24)/2)*7 = 27.7Kw/h which should cost around £7.71 per week to run, a saving of £19.01 pw or £988 a year. This is at the current rate set in April, I could be looking at double that by January if the media are to be believed.

I'm not going to go into to too much detail, but I'm on low a fixed income, and have been for a few years. In that time I've managed to remain on track and not be in arrears with any payments, including the mortgage. It's been tight but doable. However with the hike in energy costs, making savings where I can should mean I have a chance I might actually get through this silly period of extortionate energy costs without having to sell off my pets, or run up so much debt that it would take me a decade to repay it (or starve as it leaves no money for food !!). This is not a sob story, there are people worse off than me, and I appreciate the assistance the government have offered, all of which I have used to make additional payment on the electric which is my highest energy bill. It's really to highlight the options and compromises we have to make. Granted there will be those people who's financial situation is such that trebling or quadrupling of their energy bills is of no concern, but for the most of us its a very serious matter.

Anyway, I'll keep you all posted as this "experiment" continues.


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## Malc

MrsTim said:


> I was seriously thinking about solar panels, as a back up/ add on, to save on electricity, but this would be massively expensive l guess.


It's not so much the panels that are expensive, it's all the invertors and control gear that is needed to mange the supply, plus any storage battery (like the Teslar systems) to allow you to use the "spare" energy at night 

Switching to mats has cost me around £65, so far for 5 new mats. I still need a couple more (for my daughters Royals, but she's considering paying for the 'lecy the CHEs use, so may not need the additional 2 mats), so that investment should be recouped in a month of their use based on the rough calculations above... From what I've read, most solar panel installations start to pay for them selves after 10-12 years... by which time the solar array technology has advanced to make more efficient panels and the old ones need replacing !


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## Malc

Elly66 said:


> I've been thinking of buying a heat panel and will still have a uva/uvb bulb. Hoping a heat panel won't be to expensive to run.


To get an approximation, take the wattage of the heat panel, multiply that by 24 and then divide by 2. Then take that figure and multiply it by the Kw/h price you are being charged and then divide that by 100 to get £.p Do the same for the UV and add the two totals together to get an estimate / approximation. The only true way to discover the consumption would be to use a plug in watt meter. These measure the actual consumption and some even allow you to enter the cost per Kw/h and tell you in real terms what your paying.


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## Elly66

Malc said:


> To get an approximation, take the wattage of the heat panel, multiply that by 24 and then divide by 2. Then take that figure and multiply it by the Kw/h price you are being charged and then divide that by 100 to get £.p Do the same for the UV and add the two totals together to get an estimate / approximation. The only true way to discover the consumption would be to use a plug in watt meter. These measure the actual consumption and some even allow you to enter the cost per Kw/h and tell you in real terms what your paying.


I'll have to do that, be interesting to find out the difference. 
Like you, we're a low and fixed income household. Although we only have 2 vivs currently running, we do have 4 cats, 2 dogs and 8 chickens that all need feeding. We've been cutting costs where we can. I've started taking monthly meter readings and paying the cost of it each month. This may backfire, but the monthly DD was getting crazy. I've worked out that, had I continued with the astronomical DD, my supplier would be holding over £1000 in credit and that's just for 4 months. Time will tell.


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## NickN

These are certainly worrying times: my electricity cost during the summer is about 120 per month and that's before the next price cap increase and of course the winter months with the need for more heat and light. My biggest expense is an arboreal viv with a tropical species needing 31-32 degree heat during the day and 25-26 at night, a 250w ceramic plus 50w halogen basking do the job easily but I calculate it accounts for about 1/10 of my bill on its own.
It may ultimately be that this energy cost increase will cause a decrease in captive tropical species in temperate countries and perhaps in increase (proportionally) of temperate species. Certainly it's put my plans to acquire a Uromastyx on hold indefinitely.
My experience with heat mats hasn't been all that successful - due to low ambient room temps I had trouble with feeding and had concerns about respiratory infections too.


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## Malc

I personally feel that this energy crisis will have a devastating effect on the hobby / business. On one side you will see people trying to sell off their collections into an already crowded market. If that don't work (mainly as not a lot of people are going to be in the same boat) then rescue centres will be inundated (of not already) with request to rehome re reptiles. With most centres already closing their doors as they are full and again affected by the same energy costs as the rest of us, then we're going to see more and more reports of dumped snakes and lizards.

Shops will also be affected, not just by the increased costs to run the business, and thus pushing up the price of the goods and livestock they sell, but they are far less likely to take on any surplus stock form private breeders, so anyone with lots of hatchlings will be stuck with them and thus we've gone full circle.

I've got an idea on how I'm going to use these mats, and will probably update this thread as and when with any findings. I'll take some meter readings once this hot weather has broken so that the stats are driving the heaters under "normal" conditions, and then do the same once all the vivs have been switched over. Then it's just a case of monitoring the snakes for changes in their behaviour and feeding patterns. Like Nick, my main concern is the risk of RI's. The only CHE that I will be running is the 150w trough in the Boa's viv... a heat mat for such a large snake just won't cut it !


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## MrsTim

Malc, l have already noticed this recently. Just checking various selling sites, there are already few reptiles where prices have suddenly dropped/ for free, and lots of beardies and tortoises are suddenly for sale...

Also, in my local shop, pice of an even basic morph corn snakes is almost £100, due to whole sale price and overheads...


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## Malc

I've received my order of 5x 20w heat mats. Seems these are non branded (similar to Swells) which may explain why they are £10 cheaper than Ultratherms. However I plugged one in to the mains and did some testing. After an hour or so it was warm to the touch, between 38 - 42c surface temperature. But I also did an experiment. We've often read the statement that mats do not heat the air. So I placed a digital thermometer that has its sensor behind a couple of openings in the top of its case, approx 6cm from the heat mat. I reset the memory and let it sit there for half an hour / forty minutes to stabilise to get the base reading, and then turned the mat on. After an hour the temperature recorded rose from 27.6 to 31.7c. So we've been spouting incorrect information all these years.... Well no... 6cm is hardly practical, and at a practical distance the air wasn't warmed by any noticeable amount. 

Right, time to take some meter readings and then look at fitting these mats this coming weekend. I won't see the full benefit as I will still have three vivs on 150w CHE's until I order some more mats, but this should reduce the wattage from 1150w to 440w, but that's still a saving.


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## Malc

MrsTim said:


> Malc, l have already noticed this recently. Just checking various selling sites, there are already few reptiles where prices have suddenly dropped/ for free, and lots of beardies and tortoises are suddenly for sale...


Just look at the classified section on here, so many first time posters looking to rehome anything from a corn snake to a retic !


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## Malc

Just spent the past couple of hours swapping the three viv unit over form CHE to mats. The bottom and middle viv already had 28w ultratherm mats as originally I was keeping my female Bairds rat snake in the middle one, and the bottom was going to be for a male that I never ended up getting. So now I have replaced 350w of CHE and heat panel with 76w of heat mats. Each mat has the probe from the thermostat fixed to it via aluminium foil tape, and now it's a matter of dialling in the thermostats over the next few hours to get a nice sweet 32-34c substrate temperature. and then I'll monitor for a few days to see how well the snakes do before switching the main bank of four vivs over. I also need that time to rest my back (hopefully I'll hear news of when I can have my MRI to see what's going on... my right leg is totally numb at the moment as a result of the pain in my lower back !!) and it's this that is also not helping - that 4 way unit weighs a fair bit !!

On a side note, between Wednesday and last evening I monitored the electricity consumption. With the all but one viv on CHEs, TV, Fridge, Freezer, computer and lights (no washing machines, hairdryers etc) we consumed 18.7wats. At todays rate of 28p a Kw/h that's £4.86. Doing a rough calculation based on a 50:50 pulse cycle duty the consumption for the vivs alone would be £3.93, with the other 93p being the PC (on for most of the day), TV etc. Granted it's not a precise calculation, and there is a fair bit of assumption that in a 24 hour period the heaters average out at a 50:50 cycle... but it's something to go on when I do a comparison once all the enclosures are switched over.

I've also placed the digital thermometer / hydrometer in with one of the snakes. This will tell me what the conditions are like 2" above the substrate (and lets face it other than climbing, most snakes nostrils will be in this range). This will give me some indication as to how much the mats warm the air just above the surface.


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## NickN

Hope that it works for you. As the room with my vivariums in is unheated and not in the main part of the house, I wouldn't be able to do your method as the ambient daytime temperatures get too low in winter, but for somewhere with a room temperature in the low 20s C I can see that you may have success, at least with the more temperate species.


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## Malc

NickN said:


> Hope that it works for you. As the room with my vivariums in is unheated and not in the main part of the house, I wouldn't be able to do your method as the ambient daytime temperatures get too low in winter, but for somewhere with a room temperature in the low 20s C I can see that you may have success, at least with the more temperate species.


Nick, I've left the CHEs in place so it can be converted back in an afternoon if needed. As I said I'm going to see how they behave. If I notice any symptoms of RIs or they go on hunger strike etc then I will look at swapping them back to using CHE's. The snakes in the house are split over three rooms. Four royals, my boa and my Bairds rat snake are in the lounge, three royals in the small bedroom and my youngest daughter has her tow royals in her room. In a cold winter most rooms drop to 18-19c in the small hours so whilst the mats seem to be keeping the air just above the mat around 31c the rest will be at ambient room temp...


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## arwen_7

I am interested in what your outcome of this is. Looking at the 350w CHE in my boa's ~7' x 3' x 2' viv, it's pretty much never about 50% power draw. This provides the amibiant head for the hold vivarium so does the bulk of the heating, a DHP does the heat spot. 









Granted, I don't have these stats for winter yet, butthe room she is in is north facing and sits around 18-20 degrees most days.


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## Malc

Stu, that's some nice data you have there. If I read that right, the temperature swing is from 25c to 32c in a 24 hr period, presumably you have a night time drop of 7c ?

I stated 50% as it's based on how long the LED is on for each pulse of the duty cycle... I can't see how a pulse stat can have a draw that's less than 5% power, unless that figure is relating to how much of the duty cycle is being utilised for each pulse ? I was always under the impression a pulse stat gave 100% power for whatever duration. So I read your data as being 100% power for 4% of the duty cycle suggesting the heater is very efficient. I really should get one of those in-line power meter that you plug in between the outlet and whatever you want to measure... that would give me a true ideal of the consumption, save guesswork

However, whilst I am prepared to run the royals on mats, I would not be doing that for my boa. He's still having his 150w trough ceramic to keep him warm.


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## Malc

Well the mats have been running 24 hrs now, and I've dialled in the stats so the thin later of substrate is 31c - 33c . In fact the three snakes have move part of the substrate off so they sit on the mat. The thermometer recorded an overnight low of 27.6c about 2" above the heat mat in the middle viv, and I have a program drop of 3c so that wasn't to bad.

What I have noticed is there has been more thermoregulation going on. I've popped up four or five times today and noticed each snake being on the mat and off the mat more than when the CHEs were employed... even my big normal female who loves the warmth and would get as close to the CHE as possible was found at the cool side this afternoon. Thinking it may be a case the mats are too hot I checked the hot sides using the IR laser thermometer and over the area it didn't exceed 33.8c which was on an uncovered are of the mat.

Still early days. My weather station shows that the lounge didn't drop below 23c last night, so the bedrooms could well have been a round 24-25c so we've yet to see what impact a cool night has. But based on what I'm seeing I might convert the remaining 6 vivs over in a couple of weeks time. It was also feeding night, and all apart from one royal that is in blue fed without issue, so the change in how the vivs are heated hasn't upset their appetite.


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## Malc

To get a true idea of consumption I took delivery of a plug in meter. This measures voltage, amperage flowing, and watts being drawn in realtime. It then has a function to display the KW/h over time. I currently (no punn intended) have it monitoring the six vivs in the lounge the the controller is running. The total wattage rating of the five ceramic heaters and a single mat is 620w. It's only been running an hour and I will report back this time tomorrow with the data... Due to the nature of the pluses the max registered watts has been 242w, so either the power factor is coming into play, or the CHE's are more efficient, requiring less electricity to maintain, what is for them a low temperature.

I'll also repeat the test on the stack of three vivs that are now running 76w of heat mats later on in the week


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## Malc

Interesting... now the daytime temps are set the use has crept up - max wats drawn 598.8w which is close to the 620w going by the ratings on the products. Setting the cost per Kw/h to the 28p British gas are currently charging just these units have consumed 70p in the past 14 hours having consumed 2.478 Kw/h... Be interesting to see how much impact the lights make when they come on at 2pm


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## NickN

All the little things certainly add up too: I've shortened my hours of lighting in most vivs by 2-3 hours a day, multiplied by several T5 lamps that's not insignificant.


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## Malc

Well it shows that My calculations were off, and allowing a 50:50 (ie dividing the load in half ) was way off. In the past 24 Hours the consumption for 1x 150w trough CHE + 1x 150w White Python compact CHE, 3x 100w White python compact CHEs, and a single 20w mat, a total of 620w was 4.481Kw/h. At British Gas's current rate of 28p/Kwh that equates to £1.25. Prior to converting the three vivs upstairs I had 4x 150w trough Ceramic and a 50w power plate, so again 650w. So my revised figure for running the vivs is £2.50 per day. I dare say someone could work out the efficiencies of my thermostats or heaters, but for now using these figures that equates to £17.55 per week, £76.04pm

Now to swap put the CHE's for mats and re-run the same test.


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## NickN

Interesting. Does that figure include lighting, as with my digital thermostats I have lighting on the second timed socket? For example my skink has a T5 at 39 watts for 12 hours a day.

It does show how if we actually do get the predicted unit price of around £1 per kWh by next April, it could spell big trouble for many - that would triple to quadruple the above amount. Fingers crossed the government actually create an artificial cap on prices for the time being.


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## Malc

Yes Nick, it's the total draw (my controller does the lights as well). Now it may be that the sample rate of the meter is slow and as such isn't getting a true figure. For example if the sample rate was every second, and the pulse rate was less, then it would miss read the values. Mind you, looking at the code I wrote for the controller, it pulses at 1 second intervals so the readings should be true.

Well whatever the government do we'll end up paying for it in years to come - nothing is free ! But yes, they need to do something as a lot of people are struggling now, let alone come January. For me, whilst it may not be ideal, fitting mats is a compromise. It's (hopefully) going to reduce costs, but also allows me to keep the snakes.

Last night I plugged the bank of three vivs that I changed to mats (2x 28w and 1 x 20w) and in the past 12 hours it's registering 0.335 Kw/h total consumption. If it continues like that then its quite a saving


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## Malc

OK final update on this....

*Controller 1 - Lounge - Pulse proportional 6 channels used - Day temp 32c, night temps 30c. Day from 8am to 10pm. Lighting from 2pm to 10pm*
Heating:
Channel 1 - 100w white python slimline CHE
Channel 2 - 100w white python slimline CHE
Channel 3 - 100w white python slimline CHE
Channel 4 - 150w white python slimline CHE
Channel 5 - 150w full trough CHE
Channel 6 - 28w Ultratherm Heatmat

Lighting:
4 x 12" LED strips Wattage unknown
1 x 8w UV
1 x 13w Daylight LED 

Total consumption over 24 hrs - 4.481 Kw/h 
Running cost based on BG current Kw/h rate £1.25 per day. £38.02 pm

Following conversion to mats:

*Controller 1 - Lounge - Pulse proportional 6 channels used - Day temp 32c, night temps 30c. Day from 8am to 10pm. Lighting from 2pm to 10pm*
Heating:
Channel 1 - 20w Unbranded Heat mat
Channel 2 - 20w Unbranded Heat mat
Channel 3 - 20w Unbranded Heat mat
Channel 4 - 20w Unbranded Heat mat
Channel 5 - 150w full trough CHE
Channel 6 - 28w Ultratherm Heatmat

Lighting:
4 x 12" LED strips Wattage unknown
1 x 8w UV
1 x 13w Daylight LED 

*Total consumption over 24 hrs - 2.507Kw/h 
Running cost based on BG current Kw/h rate £0.70 per day. £21.29 pm*

*Controller 2 - Back Bedroom - Pulse proportional 3 channels used - Day temp 32c, night temps 30c. Day from 8am to 10pm. Lighting from 2pm to 10pm*
Heating:
Channel 1 - 20w Unbranded Heat mat
Channel 2 - 28w Ultratherm Heatmat
Channel 3 - 28w Ultratherm Heatmat

Lighting:
3 x 12" LED strips Wattage unknown

*Total consumption over 24 hrs - 0.802Kw/h 
Running cost based on BG current Kw/h rate £0.22 per day. £6.69pm*

*Total running costs for 9 vivs £27.98 pm *

Ambient room temperature at time of testing: Lounge 22c day, 20c min overnight. Back bedroom 24.5c day, min 23c overnight.

*Observations:*
More thermoregulation. 
Lounge: A male Lesser that would tend to spend at least 18 hrs a day at the warm end hide when heated by CHE has been seen actively thermoregulating the day after the conversion. The female BEL behaviour remains unchanged, spending most of the day at the cool end as she did when heated by CHE. Male Pastave enchi behaviour unchanged, remaining under the warm side hide all day, but active at night after lights go out. Female Lesser Pastel, behaviour unchanged, remaining under the warm side hide all day, but active at night after lights go out.

Back Room: Male pastel, normally spent the day at the cool side, but active after dark chose to spend most of the day on the mat, but he was going through a shedding cycle and shed cleanly the day after the test. Female lesser pastel seen mostly in warm hide, unchanged from when heated by CHE. Large female unchanged, most of the time over the mat but would then move off, but not entirely to the cool end.

Snake temperatures: Using IR Laser thermometer the snakes external body temperature was measured whilst they were laying on the hot side of the viv. This was found to be between 31.3c and 32.4c over the flanks of the snake. The snakes that preferred to spend the time at the cool side of the vivs read 23.2c (ambient room temp at the time 22.9c)

Feeding time is in one week. I'll put up a further post then to see if changing to mats has made any difference and put them off feeding (everything was on point at the last feeding session)

Anyway, that concludes this report, at least for now. At least now the future energy costs, whilst rising next month, won't continue to rise to those extortionate amounts forecast following the Prime Ministers statement yesterday. But reducing my running costs to just under £28pm for the snake is more manageable. I'll tag a revision to this once British Gas announce the rate for the new £2500 cap next month. It will also be interesting to see what happens long term, and confirm one way or another that keeping royals on heat mats is OK and causes the snakes no ill effects.


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## Malc

*Controller 1 - Lounge - Pulse proportional 6 channels used *

Just in case there are some new members that are confused about this statement above, I run my vivs off my own design of controller that is basically up to 8 individual pulse proportional thermostats, each with their own probe housed along side two lighting timers in one box. Its development over the past 12 years has been well documented on this forum, but here's a thread where the current unit evolved from









RackStat


I was bored this evening..... So I started playing about with the vivarium controller code featured in this thread https://www.reptileforums.co.uk/forums/snakes/1086155-new-controller-installation.html Removed the AM2302 sensors and re-coded to accept 8 DS18B20 sensors. This makes it ideal...




www.reptileforums.co.uk


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## NickN

Seems quite conclusive there and not a bad cost saving either. As you say the feeding test will confirm for sure (as will a winter of using the mats and see if the animals all stay healthy).

From an Australian forum I get the impression that overhead heat is rarely used there, but they also prefer something called heat cord, which sits under a tile - heat mats are regarded as a little more of a fire hazard it seems. Of course they have much better ambient temperatures in any case too.


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## Malc

Nick, I'll be keeping an eye on how things progress, especially with the colder months coming along. 

As I type this reply, the male lesser has come out of the warm hide and making his way to the cool side, around 4 hours after he did the opposite...His body temp is 31.2 - 32.0c


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## Elly66

@Malc This has really got me thinking. I've now got the new viv for my Royal and am looking at best way to set up heating/light etc. It's W 63in x H 36in x D 31.5in. I'm looking at T5 uv tube lighting, whereas current viv has a Exo Terra 13w UVB Tropical Terrarium Bulb. Heating is currently a CHE.

With the cost of living rising, like many others I'm needing to find a balance. The heating is the biggie and my want is a retic666 60cm x 30cm 180w heat panel, but I'm wondering how cost effective that will be with paying 28.415 per kwph. I used your calculations and I'm getting a scary figure 😬


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## Malc

I wish I had used the meter to see how much the three CHEs in the stack in the back bedroom was costing before I switched them to mats, and the same for the two vivs in my daughters room to get a real figure of the total cost rather than using the 50:50 split. 

The only way to get a true idea of the running cost of your viv would be to get one of the plug in power meters. Mine was around £16 off Amazon Link Here

One thing for sure is it will cost more come 1st October when the price cap rises from £1971 to £2500 (less the government assistance). I can't advise you to switch to a mat rather than the heat panel, mainly because my tests / project needs to run for some time to see if there is any long term issues, such as the snake going off food, or any signs of an RI developing, at which point I will switch back to CHEs and just have to negotiate some form of repayment plan for the £1000's debt that I will run up.


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## Elly66

I think it's going to be a case of looking for the cheapest option that will keep the viv at temperatures needed. As my current CHE is also 150w, the running cost of the panel should be similar. However, be better if lower, but snakes health is priority.


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## Jibbajabba

Got to be honest, when I was still breeding royals (back in the days when wrestling was still a thing and Bull Buchanan defeated The Godfather), everyone used heatmats or even just oile heaters to keep the ambient warm enough giving snakes nearly 0 gradient.

I am not saying we should go back to the days, but I am saying that clearly royals still flourished. Whether I used racks or stacks of vivs, the mats ended up between two enclosures and they ended up providing some sort of ambient temps.

And I never had issues with heat causing a fire hazard. The way I setup vivariums is that the bottom of each vivarium had the heatmat embedded into the ground and covered with plexi ...

i.e. :









Black = Wood
Brown = Heatmat
Green = Plexiglass
Blue = Probe

Because the heatmat was flush with the plexi there weren't a chance to create heat pockets.

Anyway, I am sure they'll be fine .. they were forever fine with heatmats ..


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## Jibbajabba

Elly66 said:


> I think it's going to be a case of looking for the cheapest option that will keep the viv at temperatures needed. As my current CHE is also 150w, the running cost of the panel should be similar. However, be better if lower, but snakes health is priority.


@retic666 Actually measured consumption when using panels he provides and they are a lot more efficient ...


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## Malc

Jibbajabba said:


> (back in the days when wrestling was still a thing and Bull Buchanan defeated The Godfather)


I must be older than you... it was big daddy and giant haystacks. Lunchtime on "World of sport".... you could hear my late mother shouting at the TV " c'mon ref, give him a public warning.....!"



Jibbajabba said:


> Got to be honest, when I was still breeding royals everyone used heatmats or even just oile heaters to keep the ambient warm enough giving snakes nearly 0 gradient.
> 
> I am not saying we should go back to the days, but I am saying that clearly royals still flourished.


As mentioned earlier in the thread, that was the way we kept them, only due to the efficient thermal characteristics of the new built flat the lounge hardly ever fell below 20ceven in the coldest of winters. I too am not advocating that we should all go back to mats, but for me it is the compromise, either reduce running costs or sell up in an already crowded market place. I started keeping snakes in 1986, and it wasn't until 2009 that I changed from mats to 12" tube heaters which was 7 years after we moved to this house, which isn't as good at retaining heat as the previous address. It was around 2011 I switched to trough Ceramics as that was deemed the norm for a tropical snake.

I've been taking the snakes body temperature and its 29- 32c depending what part you scan. I've placed the inlkbird thermometer suspended mid way between the substrate and top of the second from the top viv and its currently telling me that the air temperature in said viv is 26.6c - my weather station is telling me its 23.2c in the lounge and 15.7c outside... be interesting to see what those readings will be come December !


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## Elly66

Jibbajabba said:


> @retic666 Actually measured consumption when using panels he provides and they are a lot more efficient ...


So 150w panel would be more energy efficient than 150w CHE?
If so, that indicates the wattage is not the way to work out the cost of energy usage??
Time to order a power meter to see how much my current set up is using, though not sure how I'd work a comparison?


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## Malc

Elly66 said:


> So 150w panel would be more energy efficient than 150w CHE?
> If so, that indicates the wattage is not the way to work out the cost of energy usage??
> Time to order a power meter to see how much my current set up is using, though not sure how I'd work a comparison?


Could well be.... but you are comparing apples to oranges. The panels Retic666 sells have a larger surface area so heat up a given volume of air quicker and can keep it stable using less energy. The power ratings are for continuous use, under these conditions the panel will consume 30w more then the CHE. But as we are controlling them through a pulse proportional stat, which switches them off for a set amount of time based on the design, which could even be PID, it's very difficult to say what the difference is or what the total consumption will be as its too variable. This is why I opted to measure the consumption which proved less than using a rough 50:50 as the basis of calculation. Whilst a pulse prop stat may only be on for 50% of a time period, the duration of that on period varies and it's that variation that is difficult to predict.

The only way to work a comparison will be to do as I did, and record the wattage consumed when using a CHE and then swap it out for a panel and repeat that the next day. Or a more exact way would be to have two identical vivariums in the same room, one heated with a CHE and the other with a panel, and record the consumption of both using two of the same power meters. This rules out an variation in ambient room temps, but is reality is impractical, but unless the over night temperature changed significantly in the room the viv is housed in then the readings will be close enough


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## Malc

Just a small update:

So far its working out well. Three of the snakes have shed since the change. All three have shed clean, pretty much in one section. With CHE's I always had to routinely increase the humidity most days post blue stage to ensure the shed was clean, which as we know is often a case with CHEs. I've been taking the body temps of each snake, and the range is between 30c-32c over the snakes body, and not just the parts close to the heat mat. 

The real test will be the next feeding session, which is tomorrow.


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## Malc

Well despite the cool side in the vivs dropping to 19.8c last night, moving them to mats hasn't put them off eating  

Taking the temps of each snake regularly and they are all reading between 29 and 33c over their bodies, and that's not on the scale immediately above the heat mat ! - most readings are vertically mid body, or even near the spine !

Still early days... and I'm still on the fence. I tend to spend a lot of time on the PC which is next to the stack of four vivs, so can pick up on any signs of an RI starting, but as yet, despite temperatures falling compared to last week, everything looks OK


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## Malc

It was a cold nigh last nigh with the living room dropping to an ambient 18.9c. Most of my Royals on mats thermoregulate, spending best part of the day on the mat, and then coming out after the light go out and actively exploring. One, the male Lesser seems to thermoregulate more frequently, moving three or four times in a 24 hour period. I have one concern over my female BEL. She has always preferred one end of the viv, the cool end. Not sure why, but she would hardly bask at the warm side even under the ceramic when it was in operation. She was cold to touch this morning, and after a handling session placed her back in the viv at the warm end only for her to go and curl up at the cold side again. What I'm going to try is move the mat to what is now the cold side to see if she still stay there, and if she does, she should now warm up a little.


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## Malc

Malc said:


> between Wednesday and last evening I monitored the electricity consumption. With the all but one viv on CHEs, TV, Fridge, Freezer, computer and lights (no washing machines, hairdryers etc) we consumed 18.7wats. At todays rate of 28p a Kw/h that's £4.86. Doing a rough calculation based on a 50:50 pulse cycle duty the consumption for the vivs alone would be £3.93, with the other 93p being the PC (on for most of the day), TV etc. Granted it's not a precise calculation, and there is a fair bit of assumption that in a 24 hour period the heaters average out at a 50:50 cycle... but it's something to go on when I do a comparison once all the enclosures are switched over


Well I wasn't far off... we just submitted meter readings (trying to beat the rush before the website crashes like last April) and received our bills. Over the 125 day period since my last submission our consumption averaged £4.67 (exc standing charge and VAT), so using the washing machine and maybe the odd tumble in the dryer etc cost me around 20p a day averaged over that period.

Now I know it won't be a like for like comparison as the next three months will see longer nights, so lights will be used more, and if the central heating is run there's the impact the pump might have, but hopefully swapping over to mats will basically cover the difference between the current 28p / Kwh and the predicted 54p / Kwh from October 1st


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## Malc

Well today we switched over the last two royals to heat mats, installing two Ultratherm mats in the double stack unit in my daughters room. One thing I've noticed is the difference between manufacturers and how much more tricky thermostat probe placement is when some mats are less efficient at reaching a temperature. One of the easiest to set up was a ProRep mat. It's a full panel design (carbon cloth) and it can happily reach a surface temperature of 33c with a probe placed over one of the panels and held there with aluminium foil tape. The Ultratherms are run off Habistat pulse proportional stats, and with its probe attached the stat is up to the max and we're still struggling to reach 30c. It's design is the carbon strips, and the probe was placed between two strips mid panel. Moving the probe away from the mat did improve things and we were able to get a surface temp in excess of 33c, but this means you are not monitoring the mats temp and could overdrive the mat and run them far too hot.

One "own brand" mat that works really well is Swells. I have these fitted to the hatchling rack, and they ran nice and warm, so were easy to control by placing the probe on the mat itself. Also I find I get better control using my own design of thermostat as the digital probes are more sensitive enabling finer control compared to commercial stats.

The other thing I have noticed is my BEL prefers cooler temps than her mother or a couple of other royals. Her body temp would read between 27 and 30c and she would move off the heat pad. I guess being individuals some don't always like it hot. But so long as they have access to 32-34c hot spot that they can use that's the goal.


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## NickN

Must admit I find heat mats a pain to use under RUBs, seem to need the high range thermostat turned to 36 or so just to get 29-30 under a warm end hide in the tub, might have to look into the ProRep ones.
Good that you are having positive results with your setups, even more so if it can save some money and still be a decent environment for the snakes too. My room temperatures in my house drop to 14-16 at night so I'd not risk doing that myself with my tropical species, but the others don't have any heat anyway at night.


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## Malc

NickN said:


> My room temperatures in my house drop to 14-16 at night so I'd not risk doing that myself with my tropical species, but the others don't have any heat anyway at night.


This is my major concern. Our lounge dropped to 17.4c last night, which would put the ambient air temp in he vivs to around 18c. The BEL preferred to stay at the cool end away from the heat mat and CHE (when it was in use) so I moved the heatmat last night to what was the cool side, and now with the mat temp reading 31-33c she's moved off the mat to the other end of the viv, so she obviously prefers cooler temps. Her body temp this morning, having spent all night at the cool end was 20c... Mind you, I've not turned on the central heating, which may take the chill off the room... but I'm still holding off as whilst it dropped to 3.4c outside overnight, it's not really winter as yet, so would prefer to hold off until we get the frosts.

The only difference between now and how I ran the vivs back in the 90's was that the vivs were lit using fluorescent lights with the standard 1 1/4" diameter tubes, which ran warm enough to take the chill off the air inside the enclosures. These days everything is LEDs other than the Bairds and Boa's which both have fluorescent lighting.

I'm monitoring things on a daily basis. I may revert back if I see any signs of an RI developing or if the royals stop eating...


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## Malc

It was feeding time again this evening. Ambient room temperature is 21.3c, and all but one of the snakes scheduled to be bed ate without issue, some still showing the same keenness as before switching to mats and snatching the rat from the tongs the moment it was placed through the gap when the glass was slid back ! - The one that refused showed a little interest, but could be going into shed as she has darkened down a bit over the past few days. Everything else, including the BEL who seems to prefer the cool side (still) eat.


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## Elly66

@Malc Can I ask what you're using to take the temperature of the actual snakes please?


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## Malc

Elly66 said:


> @Malc Can I ask what you're using to take the temperature of the actual snakes please?


I use an IR laser thermometer gun. Just shine the dot on the surface of the thing to be read (in this case the substrate, mat and the snakes body) to get the temperature. Where the snakes concerned I try and aim for the mid to lower half of their body to get an idea what their temperatures are.


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## Elly66

Malc said:


> I use an IR laser thermometer gun. Just shine the dot on the surface of the thing to be read (in this case the substrate, mat and the snakes body) to get the temperature. Where the snakes concerned I try and aim for the mid to lower half of their body to get an idea what their temperatures are.


I asked because my IR thermometer states not to use on humans or animals, so wondered if you were using something different for checking the actual snakes. I'm interested in recording their body temps, so was wondering what to use?


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## Malc

Elly66 said:


> I asked because my IR thermometer states not to use on humans or animals, so wondered if you were using something different for checking the actual snakes. I'm interested in recording their body temps, so was wondering what to use?


I've had mine years so wouldn't know of any such concerns. Can't see why it would be any different. No real difference between how warm a hand is compared to any other surface. The only reason I can think of why they state that might be due to the accuracy. If its +/- 0.5c and pointed at a warm forehead or underarm it might suggest a temperature when in reality the person is fine ?


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## NickN

It's certainly not due to any safety concerns that the temperature "guns" state not to use on humans or animals: throughout Covid many places have used infrared wall-mounted or handheld thermometers to check people's foreheads with no ill-effects.
It's almost certainly the accuracy and due to the manufacturers not wanting to be held liable for, say, parents using one on their child, panicking and rushing to hospital because of a spurious high reading.


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## Malc

NickN said:


> It's certainly not due to any safety concerns that the temperature "guns" state not to use on humans or animals: throughout Covid many places have used infrared wall-mounted or handheld thermometers to check people's foreheads with no ill-effects.
> It's almost certainly the accuracy and due to the manufacturers not wanting to be held liable for, say, parents using one on their child, panicking and rushing to hospital because of a spurious high reading.


I think you are probably right Nick, it's more likely to be the threat of litigation if someone didn't use it right and it reads too high or low. Temperature readings also vary based on where it is taken. An internal reading will be higher than the forehead for example. For the purpose discussed here using the same device will give comparable readings, which as I'm not monitoring the snakes health, just to see if it's getting warm is fine


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## Elly66

Mine states it's inaccurate for humans and animals, plus risk to eyes from the laser.
The ones designed for humans have a much lower variation of temperature readings, maybe that means lower radiation and intensity of the laser?
Might have to look at the scientific information on this ( yes, I'm an information freak 😜).


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## Malc

Elly66 said:


> ( yes, I'm an information freak 😜).


N'out wrong with that.... it's better to be informed than second guess everything

Without sounding like an intro to a starwars movie, a long time ago I did my apprenticeship with British Aerospace, and they had a department that calibrated a host of other equipment including Avo meters (anyone remember them). They also had tools and equipment that was used to calibrate the calibration equipment ! - One device was used to calibrate weight and to calibrate that they used a SI 1g weight that was placed in an enclosure and kept at a very precise temperature and pressure. I often wondered what was used to monitor and calibrate the calibration device used to calibrate the tester.....


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## Elly66

Malc said:


> I often wondered what was used to monitor and calibrate the calibration device used to calibrate the tester.....


Oh yes, that's just the sort of thing I'd ask 😅


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## Liam Sinclair

Malc said:


> Back in the 1990's I used to heat all my vivariums apart from the large 72" x 21" x 21" with heatmats under a 1-2cm wood chip substrate. It was also common to run three vivs off the one stat as well... yeah, totally going against the advice we give out these days. Now most of the snakes I had were N. American rat snakes (Corns, Bairds, Gt Planes etc), but I also had an adult royal which thrived just fine in this set up. However at the time we were living in a modern new built two bed maisonette, and the lounge never really dropped below 20c even in winter, in fact we had more of a problem keeping them cool in summer than warm in winter.
> 
> Now with the announcement of ever increasing costs for energy I'm considering changing the heating in 9 of the 11 vivs but am still in two minds, mainly as we now live in a post war end of terrace house that has poor heat retention (despite cavity walls insulation and double glazing). Each viv has its own thermostat so that's not an issue, it's more the fact that all 9 vivs house royals, which we know should have a warm air environment. But this would reduce the electricity consumption from 1100w to 180w / hr (pro rata as a pulse proportional stat is used on each one). Granted it will need a £125 outlay to purchase the mats, but I'm confident that this would be recovered through the savings, especially as the media keeps reporting an increase of £1000 pa each day at the moment !! - But my concerns are the welfare for these snakes.
> 
> Now we all know that the mats are designed for wall or roof mounting so the IR they produce is absorbed by the reptile, but having them under 1-2cm of substrate to form a warm area for the snake to warm as I did thirty years ago may be an option as this could produce a layer of warm air just above the substrate.
> 
> Whilst not ideal, needs must if I want to keep the collection in these barmy times....


Do what ya gotta do, have you incorporated more chicks into the diet to cut costs that way? If you haven’t got fussy royals it may help


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## Malc

Liam Sinclair said:


> Do what ya gotta do, have you incorporated more chicks into the diet to cut costs that way? If you haven’t got fussy royals it may help


Hi Liam, I've got one fussy male that only takes large ex-breeder mice. I might try them on some chicks, but don't want them to get hooked on them as there isn't a lot to them compared to small rats


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## Malc

Just a small update:
Now it's not clear cut as there are other factors at play when comparing last year with this, but for the same period (23rd Sept to 14th Nov) we've used 416 Kw/h less this year compared to last, which at the current unit charge equates to £154.26. A bulk of that will be the conversion of the vivs to mats.

I have noticed that when the snakes are active at night they frequent the warm end more often then they used to, but they still thermoregulate but with less frequency, preferring the warm end which is quite understandable as the ambient air temperature in the room is 17.5c over night rising to 20c when we have the heating kick in for an hour in the evening.

Feeding wise, other than the Bairds rat snake which always fasts this time of year I've had one Royal that has shown hardly any interest in food for the past 4 weeks. But she often does this around November / December so I'm not reading anything into that. I've taken surface temperatures with an IR laser gun thermometer of the snakes body and they average 31c. In fact I needed to check one over post shed and he felt warm to my hands (which were not that warm!). 

Touch wood, so far none are showing any signs of an RI.


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## Malc

One observation...Since putting the Royals on mats I've had four of them undergo a shedding cycle, and all but one shed in bits and required half an hour dunk in a tub of warm water to help get the remainder off. When heated by CHE's I didn't experience the problem, which is surprising as the general consensus is that CHE's dry out the air and make shedding problematical. Given the wet weather we've had throughout November, humidity in the house (and thus the vivs) has been around 60-75% so why snakes that had an otherwise normal clean one piece shed are no shedding in bits is baffling. Maybe having warm moist air is more beneficial than cooler moist air in helping these snakes shed better.


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