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Question on housing in warmer climates

B

Bronco

New member
Hello all,
I have a question aimed at those of you that live in warmer climates.
I lived and kept my collection in New York state where in the basement it was always a matter of adding heat or a little less heat.

Now that I'm in Arizona and have converted my garage into my snake room, I would like to hear some comments on how you all deal with the heating and cooling seasons in the low desert.

I have heard some say that they hardly ever need to heat or cool their garages but rather let the natural ambient temp do it's business and the snakes go through their cycles just fine.

I'm a bit obsessive and have both heating and cooling on 2 thermostats just in case it's needed. The heat is provided by heat tape on a rheostat to the individual cases and the cooling is for the garage itself.

What is everybody else doing and using??

Thanks
Joe
 
Well, I'm not much help since I don't leave there, or own snakes there, BUT....

my aunt lives there and we go up and visit. I just want to make sure that your garage is secure so that no WILD animals get in, and if one of your snakes gets out of it's cage by accident, then it won't be able to get outside itself. But it's really warm up there, so I would just leave the snakes cages without any heating stuff during the hot seasons, but during the cold seasons I would put up their heating UTH's and lamps w/e you might have. That's what I would do over there.

Hope that helps! And good luck!

Jessica
 
I find that corns tend to regurge and not do well if the temps get over 90F for more than an hour or two each day. Much more than 90F could be very serious. Maybe an evaporative cooler would keep it below 90F, as well as provide needed humidity. I suspect they would do better outside in the shade in the summer, with a good misting system during the day and lots of ventilation (screen cage?). Just do whatever it takes to keep them in the mid - 80s and not above 90F. Use a couple of thermometers to check.

It will be easy to heat them in the winter using UTH and/or lights above the cage. The summer heat will be your big problem.

Good luck!
 
It really depends where in Arizona you are. In Phoenix, your garage will get WAYYY above 90 in the hottest part of the summer if you don't try to cool it. An evap tends to take the temp down 20F from ambient, so that can definitely get too cold at night until late in the summer. Once the rains start (which won't be for a couple of months), the evap won't do anything much to change the temps. Right now, Phoenix temps are close to 100 in the day, close to 70 at night. Tucson is a lot easier in terms of heat, but it definitely gets toasty there too. I know someone said they do ambient temps here in Phoenix, but I was assuming that was indoor ambient temps. Perhaps they will come along and clear it up for us. Good luck!
 
I have to agree with Desertanimals.:cheers: Use and evap like Desertsnanimal said, or lots and lots of fans to circulate the air. I would have your snakes outside though. Risk of the snake getting out. Or an animal thinking its food and knocking down it's cage, whoops!

Hope things turn out well! :D
 
Garage Info

Thanks for all the great input.

Just to clarify on the garage, it's pretty secured (enclosed) and has an A/C duct piped in on a thermostat. I like to mess around the work bench and watch ball games so I had it made very comfortable in there and I even had my office moved out there :) It's on the north side of the house and is shaded all day. My wife wants to kill me because she wants to put her car in there LOL Imagine giving away my great space for a car hahaha :crazy02:

I was just wondering how others were able to let their snakes go all natural with this God aweful summer heat in Phoenix. I even had a high temp alarm (buzzer) on a battery back up installed in case of power failure to A/C unit. Like I said, I'm a bit obsessive, but better safe than sorry. Next project is humidity control.

Thanks
Joe
 
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