economical heating

Whats the best method for heating a growing collection? The hydro bill is getting alot bigger.

Andrew, That depends on a lot of different factors. Generally, I have found that the cheapest way is to select the naturally warmest, and best insulated room in the house for your reptile room. Keep the ambient temps in the room around 80.

This reduces (but doesn't eliminate) the need for multiple electronic heat sources, such as tape, lamps, etc., which can really amp up the electric bill.

A lot of it depends on what and how many you keep. Incadecent lights, and ceramic fixture heaters are electricity hogs. UTH's, flexwatt, and heat rope are a lot more effecent. I.e. you could heat a wooden 4' X 2' enclosure with less than 65 watts of heat tape, but it would probably take at least 150.00 watts if you use overhead lights. Racks are always good, stacking cages so that the heat from the roof of one cage, serves as belly heat to the one above it helps. Also, making sure you have everything hooked to a good thermostat, so that you are not heating when it's not necessary, will reduce the ol' bill.

We've recently moved our collection to a room in the uncooled upstairs of our house in hopes of reduced heating costs during the summer. We're in Minnesota, and when I measured the temp in the room today, it was just over 90. At night it gets down into the 70's. We figured that with that kind of ambient temperatures and natural sunlight, we wouldn't need additional lighting or heat until cooler months. I'm wondering of ways we can be sure that we're giving them an adequate environment. I suppose our best bet would be to look at the temp ranges for each of our species and be sure they fall within them. Does anyone have any tips for this kind of husbandry? Things to be aware of that we should try to avoid, etc? We have 2 ball pythons, a red sided garter snake, a corn snake and a black rat.