Heat Cable Question

i just purchased a ton of sterilite racks that i plan on using for racks. but i am torn on how to heat them. here are the ones i purchased.
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Sterilite-...White/15940600
i am not sure if i should use heat tape or heat cables and how to install them. the bottoms are open but i plan on stacking them ontop of eachother. the problem with heat tape is that i have 18 tubs which means i would need ALOT of tape. so i am in a dilema. please help on how to heat these things up! thank you

I use heat cable and I love it, I'm to electrically challenged to mess with putting heat tape together and heat cord is just plug and go, just make sure you use a therm like heat tape. I got mine from Big Apple Herp. They have a video somewhere that shows you how to use it.

They leak like a sieve so humidity might be an issue.
They have a lot of places for a snake to grab a hold and push making them easy to escape from.
They are difficult to heat, maybe not impossible but6 you'll probably have to do back heat.
Heat rope won't give you the ambient temperatures you want in a tub like that.

Several years ago I looked into those and decided they weren't worth the issues they present.

Originally Posted by snakesRkewl

They leak like a sieve so humidity might be an issue.
They have a lot of places for a snake to grab a hold and push making them easy to escape from.
They are difficult to heat, maybe not impossible but6 you'll probably have to do back heat.
Heat rope won't give you the ambient temperatures you want in a tub like that.

Several years ago I looked into those and decided they weren't worth the issues they present.

when you say they have alot of spaces to grab onto, what ways do they have? also, how are they difficult to heat if i use back heat? thank you

They may do fine with back heat if you use flexwatt, I can't see cable heat producing enough heat to produce ambient heat for the cool side of the tub.

The ones I saw being used had ridges in the ceiling that the snake would use to push the drawer out, with some ingenuity I'm sure it's a fixable problem.
The issue with humidity may or may not be fixable, there's a lot of gap if I remember correctly.

I'd use heat tape, but that's just me. And you probably don't need as much of it as you think, especially if you use the 11" Flexwatt and run it along the back so it heats both levels at the same time.

It's really easy to wire, actually. I wired all of mine myself for eight- and nine-shelf racks. (My goodness, did my soldering job totally suck when I started!) Wire, solder, and a soldering iron are all really cheap, too. I used this little tutorial as a reference: http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...light=flexwatt. If you have any questions about it, just ask. :-]

Heat tape vs. heat cable is purely a personal preference. We use both, but prefer the tape. The heat cable seams to run allot hotter than the tape. That is just what we have noticed with ours. In the end they both work fine and there really is no significant difference between the two.

Heating is the least of your concerns. If you purchased TONS on those, I hope you kept the receipts. Those things are garbage. They don't seal when the drawers are closed so there is plenty of space for critters to escape. For the same reason, they won't hold heat.

Think about it. Those things have been around forever and yet you don't see people using them for reptiles.....there is a reason for it.

Spend the little bit of money on a rack from animal plastics or one of the other multiple companies out there and get a rack that is made for the proper care of the animals its made for. These containers are made for storing clothes and things not reptiles. I know some people make their own racks and thats cool but these containers are not even close to good enough for any reptiles. Like others were saying, there are big cracks in between the drawers which allows all the heat to just come out. This is going to make your thermostat run non stop and still not get to the temps its needs to be. If you really need cages on a budget then buy individual plastic containers with lids and put a heat strip under it with a couple really small holes for ventilation on the cool side. But if you are going to use 18 tubs which means 18 snakes, that pretty much tells me you have plenty of money to purchase and feed multiple animals so you have the money to buy a rack. Just think about it do you want to invest in that many snakes only to be heartbroken at some point because they escaped and died or died from an RI because the temps weren't what they needed to be?