Setting up my HOT room (PICTURES)
 

Well I always enjoy looking at pictures of people’s setups so I thought I would start a post and show mine.

I recieved my Venomous Reptile Licence in 1993. In 1999 I got out of the hobby because of the Military and a bad marriage. I'm am now out of both and getting back to what I really love and have missed.

Picture #1

DANGER! You are about to enter my snake room. (Sign is cool IMO but also lets police or firefighters know why the door is closed and locked if such an event arises)
The door can only be opened with a key. Hanging from the door handle is a combination key safe that holds the key to the snake room. I have 2 kids in the house so safety, prevention and security come first. They know what these snakes can do but it’s better to be safe than sorry. They have their own non venomous snakes they can play with.

Picture # 2
Also notice framed Venomous License hanging on the wall along with emergency numbers (Hospital, Florida Fish Commission, Police and Vet) and also a list of what to do and what not to do in case of a bite. Sure I know what to do but in the panic (my GF or kids) may forget and they can just grab the frame and read the info if I'm not doing well. (This info is a few steps past the obvious like calling 911)

Picture # 3
Behind the door and along the bottom is a metal strip, the gap is so thin paper has a hard time sliding under. If a snake ever gets out it won’t be crawling under the door and chasing my GF around the house.

Picture # 4
The A/C vent and outtake vents are screened and secured with a staple gun. This prevents snakes from escaping through both vents.

I never had a HOT snake escape (knocks on wood) but if a snake does escape or gets away from me it will stay in the room till I can capture it.

More pictures to come in a day or so.

Looks nice, very professional! I hope to get into hots (in a limited fashion; copperheads and/or eyelash vipers) some day....but not today..hehehe

(ABOVE)

In picture # 3 you can see brown carpet. In picture # 4 you can see a wall right behind the A/C vent. That wall is a closet.

So I was sitting in my snake room the other day trying to figure out how I can add more snakes and cages. There are a few large snakes I would like to get and my current cages are only 4 foot.

Thoughts went through my head... I can put a shelf in front of the closet but that means I can't use the closet plus the A/C vent would be right over the cages. I decided the closet must go. The closet was built into the room and not behind a main wall.

Picture # 1
You can see the vent that once had a closet behind it. I should have taken pictures but when I decide to do something I don't slow down. You can see the white paint where the closet once was.

Picture # 2

Another shot of where the closet was.

Picture # 3

Pulling nails and wood that held down the carpet around the closet. My problem was once the closet was removed it left a 5" X 8 foot bare spot where the wall was. I decided to just go ahead and tile the floor. (Those pictures in a day or so)

Picture # 4

My big helper. That's my BOY, I LOVE HIM TO DEATH!

Well last night my GF I were cleaning the walls and blinds, they were filthy after laying tile and all. (Not 100% done with the tile but the dirty part is pretty much over) I finished the dry wall repair and put on the texture. I don't have pictures but as you can imagine I had to repair the wall where the 2X4 held up the closet walls and I also got the ceiling ready, applied several more cans of popcorn. (What a freaking mess) Now we are ready for paint.

Picture # 1
Half the room is tiled.

Picture # 2
I decided to take the tile all the way down the hall. (Most of my house has the same tile)

Picture # 3
You can see the outline of where the closet once was. (That outline was the gap in the carpet that I had to fix and just decided to tile instead of replacing with carpet)

Picture # 4
I had to replace the door. The door I originally had was modified at the bottom because the carpet gave in a little and wasn't perfectly flat. Now with the tile the ground is flat and hard and as you will see in my next post is a perfect fit.

Picture # 1
Finishing putting on the new door

Picture # 2
Now the aluminum plate is cut to size and put under the door to prevent escape.

Picture # 3
This time I don't need a metal strip on the door. The door now closes with no gap. The door rubs a little when opening and closing but in time will ware down to a perfect fit. (Paper can not be slid under the door) (Sorry about the side shot, turn your head :-)

Picture # 4
Another shot of how it will look once the tile grout is done.


* I can't seem to get some of these pictures in order. Do your best

Put a second an third sign n the door. One about waste high and another on the ground. Why you ask. If tere is a fire and a fre fightr is on the ground and go to that room they know hots are inside that room.

Great looking so far

That is an excellent suggestion....and :iagree: , looking great!

Well I painted the wall and the ceiling today.

The caned popcorn I got from Lowes worked great but left a brown tint. The home builder used a white paint mix with the popcorn. I called the builder got the exact color and found out where they got the paint from. I was saved from painting the whole ceiling to get it all to match.


Thanks for the feedback guys.

Well I didn't do much this weekend. I finished grouting and putting on the quarter round. I also drilled a couple holes in the tile so the metal plate is now secured under the door.

The rest of my shelves should be here this week and my Animal Plastic cages should arrive by next Monday.

wow looking great!

I got my 6 foot shelves from Metro today. I put blankets down to prevent scratching while I put them together. I have 1 more 4 foot shelving coming tomorrow. All together I can fit 15 4 footcages and 6, 6 foot cages in the room.

Next will be the long task of putting the cages together. :-(

I'm also thinking of using a portable AC in the room. I imagine 21 heating devices will get this South facing room really hot. I'm not sure of the best way to go about it right now. I have an AC guy coming out tomorrow to go over my options with me. When I used this room as a den my 1 widescreen TV and large bay window kept the room around 82F. Not bad I guess for snakes but I have a feeling the temp is going to get higher than that. I plan on putting something up to block the heat around the window and the tile should help so I may wait and see. (Plus winter is right around the corner)

The A/C guy came out today but wasn't very helpful. Besides moving a vent from another part of the house and adding it to the snake room he wasn't sure what to do. I told him we could have a million vents in the snake room but as long as the thermostat is across the house it will never pick up the heat in this room. In this case my room could reach 120F and the thermostat would never know. He did say he would check with his boss for other options but I never heard back.

I decided to buy a portable A/C that should be here next week. This means I have to sacrifice 1 cage to make room for the A/C unit. Unit should be here in a week or so.

Today I went to Ace and bought some plants to shade the front window. Once they get going they should help reduce some of the heat. (Anything helps)

Sorry for the long break. I took some time off to visit the Hamburg Reptile Expo this past weekend. On Monday my 15 cages arrived from Animal Plastics and spent most of Monday putting 7 of them together. Tuesday and Wednesday I spent doing other things like getting some of the cages ready for my snakes and other things before the rest of the cages can be brought in the room.

I took a trip to the rock store and brought them home. You can see my big helper in the pictures as he cleans the dirt off the rocks.

I also had an issue with the portable AC I ordered. I had no where to put it. The best thing I could come up with was to remove 1 cage from the room and set it by the window. At first I thought I could just set the AC on one of the metal shelves but after some further thought I realized each time the AC comes on it would be like a small earthquake for the snakes on that shelving unit. So I removed the bottom shelf thinking I could just set the AC on the floor. Once I removed the shelf the whole shelving unit became unstable without a bottom shelf to help support it. Trying to figure out the best way to make this work I decided to rent a grinder from Home Depot and cut out 50% of the inner part of the shelves. This will allow the shelving unit to have bottom support and allow the AC unit to sit on the ground and doesn't touch the shelving. My AC should be here today and I hope it works as planned.

Here are the rest of the pictures

Wow amazing room!! Great job on the tile to! Was just skimming through here but had to say great job. As for the AC guy call him back over and smack him LOL. My hubby is an HVAC tech and if he were awake and I ask would probably start rattling (no pun intended) off some kind of technical mambo jumbo on how you could fix that issue. IE move the thermostat and rewire it or install a second thermostat with dampers in the duct work allowing/restricting air flow...or some such thing... Baiscly if your HVAC person knows there stuff you can't shut them up.

Thanks for the compliment.

As soon as the sun comes up I will take more pictures. I'm pretty much done now. I am still waiting on 6 more cages from AP but for the most part I am done.

sheesh.... what an awesome job there.... * is totally jealous* Seriously beautiful work!

and, of course, CONGRATS!

It's very dark in the snake room now as you will see 5 cages block the large window and my camera phone doesn't have flash.

You can see all the cages have been put together and a few are already setup. 6 shelves are empty as I wait on my 6 foot cages from AP.

I have 7 Spyder Robotics Herpstat Pros. 1 unit for 3 cages. 3 outlets are for heat and the fourth outlet controlls all 3 lights. It works out perfectly.

The portable AC fits perfectly as you can see.

The clock by my computer is actually my weather station. It tells me what the temp and humidity is inside the snake room by way of remote sensor. (I also have sensors outside the house) I can bring the weather station where ever I go. If I want to watch TV I can bring it, if I want to use the computer I can have right next to me and when it's time for bed it's my alarm clock. The humidity is around 58% right now but I have a condinsation pump coming that will hook up to the AC unit. The unit also has a dehumidifier but can only work with the pump. At first I didn't think I needed a heater with all the heating cables but I changed my mind. It's better to have and not need then to need and not have so I went ahead and got the AC/heater unit.

The leather chair is in the room for me to sit down and chill. Being around my snakes is therapy for me I guess. Sort of like running water in a garden, good for the Kingetulas' mind and soul.


All cages have locks, lights and belly heat.

Not that it would be easy for anyone to break into the room with all those cages and weight but I also had adjustments made to the security alarm. I added that annoying siren that wakes up the whole neighborhood. :eek:

Here a re the rest of the pictures

Security

Are the plants outside your window part of your security ? are they thorney ? I am laying out my room now. I have a steel slab exterior door with two deadbolts that I will be useing. I also plan on shooting some four inch screw's through the window into the window jam as well as planting rose bush's out side the window as the wife prefers them to razer wire. You have a very nice room there.

Safe Ouch? You have plants for security... uh.. nice?
I think you did a great job on the room, very, very cool. :)

Sure, some plants are outstanding for security. Roses are in my opinion the best due to the fact that they grow fast and are thorney enough to really taer a person up and they are cheap too. I got mine for free because they were going crazy at my friends house. Maney security experts recomend plants, bushes and shrubs under window's for home security. I live in an area ware break ins are common and havent had any crack heads try yet.

LOL, no it's Safe Touch Security Systems (Monitored home alarm) . Plants help as well I guess.


Thanks guys for the praise

I was also wondering about your climat control devices. Ware did you get them , what they cost ?

They are Spyder Robotics Herpstat pros. Dion has several diffrent types but for my needs I had to get the Pro.

Well the cages are coming along. I'll get better pictures of the snakes in a few days once they get use to things and start crawling around.

You can see a picture of one of my Mottled Rocks hanging out. He was on the rocks wedged into them but once I started messing around to get pictures and all he headed to the floor. Another cage is for my Baja Rattlesnakes. I tried to pick out the stone to best match the color of the snakes. Yes the rocks are secure, I don't want an earthquake (accident) to crush them.

I'm going to try and make time this week to take my snakes to Sears and get professional pictures taken. :eek: :NoNo:

Ok maybe it's better if I just point and click at home. Look for them in the next week or so.

My camera phone sucks but here are a couple I am selling right now. Not the best pictures but I'll be getting a digital camera soon and will post more soon I hope. I'm going to be setting up myspace with videos and pictures of my snake hobby soon. www.myspace.com/kingetula

Good looking animals.

I was also wondering if you have to remove all the rocks when you clean, or do you have a method of cleaning around them ?

I took some video of the show. It's about 4 minutes long with 5 to 10 second clips.

I posted it on myspace DELETED AS OF OCT 31 2007. No longer available

I think it's an awesome set up and the fact that you did the work mainly yourself with your gf and son helping makes it even more so. (how I wish I were that handy...I would add on a room to my house! :))

I can honestly state that I know nothing about "hots" other than they are venomous..but apparently you have provided all the needed safety features! Good luck!

What's crazy is I have had 2 escapes. :-(

The Animal Plastic cages that I got are not very good for baby snakes. It took my Vipera ammodytes 5 weeks to figure out how to crawl between the quarter inch space where the glass doors meet. Thank God I had the room door escape proof and found him crawling along the wall.

My second escape was by Bothriechis schlegelii (Golden) it only took this guy a few days. Again thank God I screened the AC intake and outtake. This guy was just sitting on top of the metal shelving above his cage chilling.

I love the Animal Plastic cages but for small new born snakes, not recommended. (at least not the slidding door type)

I have moved them out and or they have gotten larger and are now secure.

Chilling story! (shock) But all's well that ends well. :)

(good info to know for future purposes..thanks)

really nice set up.