oxeimon

So I've got a peruvian rainbow boa in a 36x18x16 cage. The ambient temperature in my room is about 68 degrees, and that's approximately the temperature on cold side of the cage. However, I'm having trouble getting the temperature on the warm side to an acceptable level. I've got approximately an inch of substrate (cypress mulch), and there are 3 hides on the hot, warm, and cold sides of the tank.

Right now, I've got a 100watt heat lamp, and a flukers UTH. The 100w heat lamp gets the temperature on the hot side to around 85, which is perfect. However, it does a lot to dry out the tank, and with the heat lamp on, the humidity at the center of the tank won't stay above 60.

Now, the flukers UTH gets the top-level substrate temperature to around 83, which is okay. However, the glass underneath the substrate is at an uncomfortable 125 near the center of the heat mat. I guess the problem is that the substrate acts as insulation for the bottom of the tank?

I'm worried about two things:
1. If I use the 100w heat lamp, is there a possibility that the snake will need the heat, but will stay away from it because it's so drying?
2. If I use the flukers UTH, is there a possibility that the snake will burn itself when burrowing? (it likes to burrow a lot for some reason)
3. Is there a third option? I could try attaching a thermostat to the UTH, but if the snake is burrowed on top of the UTH while it's cool, and it suddenly heats up, we're back to the same problem as in (2).

- will