Thousands of dollar's worth of snakes saved- Thank You forums!

Today I want to thank the forums & post this so others will have the chance to save their collections from harm. I walked into my snake room to find that one of my main T-stats had failed. If not for these on-line forums, I have no doubt I would have lost all the snakes in those racks.

Once I knew I was going to be collecting a fair amount of snakes, I read up on forums such as this fro the best way to protect my babies. In particular, two stories from folks willing to share some lessons learned stuck in my mind. They were of Jeff Rohne’s thermostat malfunction & of a UK keeper who lost nearly his whole collection during a lengthy winter power outage.

I wanted the best heavy duty thermostat I could get- one that would handle several racks, that meant a good on/off T-stat. I discovered Johnson & Ranco made the best for what I needed. Thank you Jeff for sharing about the benefits of a double gang unit!!! After nearly 6 years of use when my Ranco failed- instead of a single unit in the stuck on position, the second unit shut the setup down saving over 18,000 dollars worth of snakes.

Another part came into pay this morning as well; it was 33F outside this morning. Any place can lose electric & I’m in a place that in winter, loss of power could hurt my guys. I can’t stress this enough BACK UP HEAT! Summer heat isn’t an issue for me as my basement stays cool. My Snake room is on it’s own gas heat & the temp is set at 70F… power outages have no impact. So the snakes in the racks that were on the failed unit had a uniform 70F to work with until I put them on my spare T-stats.

So a few things I would recommend to other keepers-

• If you use an on/off T-stat use double gang; proportional users just watch that you don’t overload your units.
• Have back-up T-stats!!! Even the best ones out there can fail.
• Have either gas dedicated heat or a generator for your herps.
I hope this helps another keeper down the road. I know today as I look at my babies- I’m thankful for those who posted before me.
-Deb

I'm glad to hear your babies are all fine~
And thanks for the reminder. I've just moved~ and I have spare T-stats but I've not set them up properly to back each other up yet. I'll take care of that this weekend~
Thanks

I am happy to hear it ended well for you. Thanks for the timely reminder!

Glad to hear you weathered that!! Congrats!

a temperature alarm system in my building that calls my cell phone if the temps are too high, too low, or the power goes out. It cost $200 and is easy to program. Talk about piece of mind. I can even call it to check room temps when I am out of town! Check it out at
http://search.homesecuritystore.com/...m&bViaAC=False
Part number FA-I-CCA-Freeze Alarm.

Originally Posted by Tim Cole

a temperature alarm system in my building that calls my cell phone if the temps are too high, too low, or the power goes out. It cost $200 and is easy to program. talk about piece of mind. I can even call it to check room temps when I am out of town! Check it out at
http://search.homesecuritystore.com/...m&bViaAC=False
Part number FA-I-CCA-Freeze Alarm.

Wow Tim, that's some cool info... that's for posting that link!
I believe in stacking the deck in my favor at every turn- "Luck" is where opportunity intersects preparation.