# Loft/Attic as Rep Room



## Nismo75 (Mar 23, 2009)

Is a loft a good place for a reptile room? Are there any issues ie extra insulation needed etc. Anyone have any pics of their setups?

Ta


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## LiamRatSnake (Jul 3, 2007)

Nismo75 said:


> Is a loft a good place for a reptile room? Are there any issues ie extra insulation needed etc. Anyone have any pics of their setups?
> 
> Ta


Lots of people do, just that some attics get really warm in summer with all the heat from the house rising upwards and boilers ect.


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## Scarlet_Rain (Jan 16, 2009)

Hey there, we have a converted attic with 30 points on a seperate fuse box. The room is 9x12 and has 2 side hatches on the left and right at the back of each end of the room. In each of the storage spaces is a seperate light and you can easily duck down through as the space is roughly 12x3 with a sloping roof and inbuild lighting.Our insulation comes from the roof insulation, but also we have a room inside the roof if you know what I mean so its not like the insulation from the roof is exposed.

The room cost £5000 in total with electrics and carpentry.
Also added on was another £2000 for vivs, handling eqip and medications.
And then another £7000 for livestock.

Of course you can ignore some of these figures as this was a room solely developed for this purpose and of course you will be spending a lot less if you are just to have the room converted.

In the winter the room is always warm as the heat is shared from all the vivs if there is a cold day we use a small heater. In the summer we have air conditioning fans and don't really need to keep the window open except when its really hot. We do find the temp slightly challenging but the fans work well and the heater in the winter keeps the room at a good temp. 

The temp in the summer goes from 20-22 at night and 24-27 in the day. This is probably the reason a lot of our snakes are doing so well in here. In the winter the temp at night is from 15-18 and the day is 20-22 

As we are using timers and halogen lighting, we hope to cut down with the vast amount of electricity used. We are also considering having a solar panel installed but thats a long way off!

If you would like some photos I will be happy to take some for you


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## strictly_scales (Sep 10, 2008)

It is a challenge, keeping suitable ambient temperatures. Mine (the above post), runs a 400 Watt heater during the Winter, and a pair of fans during the summer. It's been a real challenge setting it up, but it's pretty much there.

It took me 3 days to set everything up and transfer all the animals across, another day on sorting the electrics properly, and since then I've been fine tuning... it's not yet finished, although it probably never will be.

Only problem is, the original animal room is now... another animal room... and my kitchen is my Aquarium... and the old world pythons live in a stack in the sitting room... so I suppose really I've only gone from one room of animals to 4...

There isn't an end to this....


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## Mrs dirtydozen (Sep 5, 2008)

thought about doing this but my hatch is that big so would be able to make very big enclosure and certainy couldnt fit my visions up there lol


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## Darklas (Mar 25, 2009)

Scarlet_Rain said:


> If you would like some photos I will be happy to take some for you


I'd love to see some photos of this too. When I get my new house I plan on making the attic a rep room.


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## strictly_scales (Sep 10, 2008)

Yeah, I have a slight hatch problem too- the entrance doorway is only 20 inches wide, so large Vivs have to be built on site. We'll try to get some pics up- as I said, it is a work in progress...


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## strictly_scales (Sep 10, 2008)

*Pictures as requested*

Ok...









The grand entrance (actually it is very small)









Handling equipment, DWAA licence etc









The whole room









Detail of my bug rack and _Boiga dendrophila dendrophila_ temporary accomodation









Various scorpion enclosures









Juvenile Bosc and Retic rack









Central rack housing, amongst others, _Boiga cyanea_, _Varanus panoptes hornii_, _Coluber jugularis_ and Baboon Spiders









Part of the right hand side of the room- more monitors!

The signs took ages- I now have my own laminator as the DWAA people really liked the signage.


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## Simplylucy (May 22, 2009)

I had a full on loft conversion done on my house a couple of years ago. It's 18ft x 13ft with an en-suite.

It's actually my bedroom, however there seems to be a stack of 10 vivs, plus a couple of other single ones up there now, along with my wardrobe, bed, draws etc! Thank goodness it's a huge room (still space of my huge telly and cross trainer!)

It can get warm up there in the summer, at the moment the heat mats hardly ever switch on, I'm keeping a close eye to ensure things don't get too hot even with the mats off though. The winter isn't too bad up there as it has central heating.

Eventually I'd like to move out and let the reptiles take over, having the en-suite obviously would be handy and with the huge size of the room I could have vivs galore! 

Only one problem...........need to wait for the children to grow up so I can have one of their rooms! The oldest will be 11 this year!


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## Scarlet_Rain (Jan 16, 2009)

lucy1978 said:


> I had a full on loft conversion done on my house a couple of years ago. It's 18ft x 13ft with an en-suite.
> 
> It's actually my bedroom, however there seems to be a stack of 10 vivs, plus a couple of other single ones up there now, along with my wardrobe, bed, draws etc! Thank goodness it's a huge room (still space of my huge telly and cross trainer!)
> 
> ...


LOL "why do I have to sleep in the cuboard mummy?" Hahaha imagine. The things we do for reptiles huh? hehe


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## monitor mad (Jun 16, 2008)

couple of pic's of half my loft


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## wozza_t (Jan 4, 2007)

monitor mad said:


> couple of pic's of half my loft


 
now THATS a loft..........:notworthy::notworthy::notworthy::no1:


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## Pauline (Aug 3, 2006)

LiamRatSnake said:


> Lots of people do, just that some attics get really warm in summer with all the heat from the house rising upwards and boilers ect.


The solution to keeping an even temp would be to instal an air con unit. I had a split air one in my rep room before I moved as there were no windows for ventilation, and it kept the temp at a constant 80 deg F, it never waivered. The other great advantage of it was it got rid of those awful smells like regurged rat.


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## Darklas (Mar 25, 2009)

monitor mad said:


> couple of pic's of half my loft


 
Wow!!


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