Providing heat to boas

Can you ONLY provide ambient heating to a boa? What are the pro's and con's of heating a room to 80-85 and having no hot post.
How do you heat your boas?
What are the different methods you have tried?
Why are you using what you currently have now?
Does price effect what product you use?

I personally, started out as a beginner over 10 years ago with the old heat lamp and bulb option. Later I switched to the ceramic heat emitter, heating pads, then to flex watt. Currently I am using 80 watt heat panels. My reptile room fluctuates in temperature quite a bit between winter and summer so a good quality heat and thermostat is important.

I kept boas in a room heated to 84 degrees, with no supplemental cage heat, for a few years. They did well, and I had no issues - however I wasn't trying to breed them at the time. In my current set up, my upstairs reptile room stays relatively warm even during cool weather, because of the heat from the various racks. The rack with my male boas has been unplugged since mid June, and will likely stay that way at least until I've removed the males from the females' cages. The females cages got shut down during the hotter portion of the summer.
I have a 21" heat tape on my 4x2 cages, 17" heat tape on my 3x2 cages - it's functional....but I don't think it provides a hot enough basking area during the winter months when that particular room is cooler. Last year was the first season in the new house, so I'll be trying to tweak things this year. I only had one boa litter - I don't know if the lower cage temps and basking area have anything to do with that, or it was just my regular luck with boas, lol. That one litter did seem to run long...which probably WAS due to lower basking temps for the gravid female.
If an albino takes this year, I'll probably throw one of my heat panels in her cage - at least during gestation....I've actually been contemplating switching all the female boa cages over. I think I have enough heat panels, but I'm not sure they are the best size/wattage for my situation. I'll touch base with Bob Pound before I make that decision.

I have kinda been through the whole stage you have Harald, even the part about moving to a new house and having to play with temps. The house I just moved from held temps a lot better, so flex watt was the only thing I needed for a hot spot. Once I moved to this new place, temps were much different. I really like these heat panels, especially for my females. When I had only belly heat, they would never really bask on the flex watt unless gravid. Since I have switched out the flex watt for heat panels, they are now basking much more under the panel. In my snake room right now, my ambient temp is 72 degrees, yet my cool side in my female boas cage is 80 and the hot side is at 92. I have a hide box (modified litter box) in each of there cages, BOTH females pushed the hide over to the warm side so they could get on top of it. Most often there body temps were around 82, I have noticed lately with the panels they are averaging 84-86 body temps.

Jeremy, why does it feel like the conversation we had a few days ago prompted this thread. LOL. I would definately like to know more about RHP. My boas are actually doing quite well with just ambient temps but thats not how I wish to continue my setup. I only have 8 boas right now, and although a rack would be more cost efficient, I'd rather have them in 4x2. But this is not about housing it's about temps, although it all kind of falls together.

Price does play a major part in deciding heating method. I can spot heat my whole crew for less than the price of 2 RHP. My Boa high rise will be 18" high each so I do plan on adding the 40 watt RHP's 2 at a time should the flexwatt not workout for them.

It was actually a conversation I had with a young lady on face book. She states that her "boa room" is set at a constant 85 degrees and I just don't agree with it. I always have felt a boa or reptiles in general should have the choice to go from one temp to another. With the room being at a set temp and no additional heat source it just doesn't give them that healthy option. Now I do agree that this set up would probably work fine temporarily for a collection of pets, but not breeders. A gravid female boa has to have the option of going from a warmer temp to a cooler temp to give you a strong, healthy and full litter.