Whats your emergency overheating protocol?

[Artic Exotics]

Apparently my rheostats went buggy and my tanks are overheating.. badly. I admit I have relied too heavily on automation so I failed to notice untill I went to feed my babies today. I opened my NW adult female tank up today like I do everyday and got a strong gust of heat. Temps were at 90+ coldside... the "warmside" warranted renaming to "broilerside"....

Naturally, I moved everyone into holding and am trying to figure out why my rheo's are failing to regulate considering the surge protectors they are plugged into are functioning. Unfortunately i lost one of my baby northwesterns as a result of the extreme heat. Also unfortunate for me its sunday tomorrow and I will not be able to purchase new rheos untill monday. So my garters will be chilling at 65 for a day or so after potentially up to 12 hours at dangerously high heat. hopefully this isnt too hard on them. Man i really feel like i got caught with my pants down on this one.

Living in Alaska I never thought to have a overheating protocol like I do with freezing, and I paid for this mistake today with the life of a wonderful snake. So I figure Id ask the community what your emergency protocols are like? How do you avoid overheating in warmer climates? How do you go about artificially cooling your tanks? Does anyone use / Is there like an alarm system or something that can tell you (like audibly) if your systems are failing / have failed?

Seems like this is the sort of thing we all should have a plan for so we dont end up losing our scrubs to highly preventable causes like I did today .

[gregmonsta]

Horrible situation, I hope the others won't be too negatively affected by the experience.

I think that, other than being vigilant, choosing the right equipment is very important.

My thermostats are not the main brand usually recommended over here. Most people would recommend another brand because they are 'more accurate' - this other brand tends to stay on when it has a failure though. So I chose the 'less accurate' (just as accurate if you balance it with a thermometer) brand that tends to shut off when a components fails.

Choice of heat-sources is also important. In one of my set-ups I use heat cable. There are many 'soil-warming' cables, etc, that can be bought that are cheaper than reptile branded products. But, the cable I bought was designed for lizards and to be used in the enclosure around furnishings etc. It would not exceed 35C without a thermostat (although I use one regardless).
In my other set-ups I have ceilling mounted heat-panels that were designed for raising poultry. These have their own thermal cut-offs and again provide a second line of 'defense'. If a thermostat failed I'd also be able to regulate these with their own dimmer switch.

During the summer I make sure the room is well ventilated and I also have a fan to increase airflow to compensate for the raised ambient temps in my flat. This is usually enough for my set-ups.

As far as emergency protocol goes, I always make sure have a spare thermostat, heat-sources, lights and emergency enclosures. I tend to keep any old equipment if it's not broken. Most of the spare equipment has built up over time as I've upgraded my set-ups over the years.

[guidofatherof5]

Sorry to hear about your loss.
Can you post a photo of the faulty piece of equipment?
Was it a dimmer type rheostat?
This is what I use and have very good luck so far. They monitor the temp and control it.
Amazon.com: Hydrofarm MTPRTC Digital Thermostat For Heat Mats: Patio, Lawn & Garden

[Selkielass]

Im just starting to use backup temperature controls on my heat mats.
I have one hydro farm digital and and two zilla with a dial for setting the temperature.
The hydro farm is my favorite as the digital read out tells me the temperature at the probe at a glance- the sills ones require a separate thermometer for read out.

I've only had one small vinyl pillow type mat overheat, and it fortunately had a slab of stone over the glass to disperse the heat, and plenty of room for the snake to move away from the hot spot. (25%If or less of the floor.)

Heat mats are a supplement to my heating with incandescent lighting- I switch the bulb size up and down with the season, and when a bulb burns out I see it at morning or afternoon check.

[ConcinusMan]

I guess my question then, is why have so much heat potential in the first place? I don't use thermostats at all and my tanks never overheat. I do have wireless thermometers though that sound an alarm at set min and max temps. (can monitor up to 4 wireless thermometers from a single base station)

I hear about way too many problems with thermostats that I just can't justify the price. I just use heat sources that can't overheat the tanks. Appropriate bulb wattages, seedling heat mat instead of those damn hot (and overpriced) zoo med ones.

If your house gets hot in the summer you can cool your snakes by placing bags or containers of frozen water or gel on the cool end of the tank but of course you'll need to replenish pretty often and if there's a lot of humidity in the air they can cause quite a bit of condensation, making your substrate damp. I just run air conditioners. House is always between 60-72 degrees year 'round. Back in the mojave desert I use a swamp cooler instead due to the very dry air.

[Stefan-A]

Running everything on full blast, adjusting temperatures by changing the distances between the heat mat and the enclosure. Something needs to catch fire before the enclosures overheat and even then, a catastrophic malfunction should blow the fuse before something does catch fire.

[Artic Exotics]

Ive been using both heat lamps or heat cable dialed down by rheostat. The disaster occured because I unknowingly overloaded the surge protector that everything was plugged into. Without the surge protectors the rheostats overloaded and everything in the entire room was running at full blast creating a substantial increase in the entire room's temperature. With the whole room super heating even the cool side of the tanks were too hot. With nowhere to run the poor beasties were just stuck in the heat and thats what caused 7's untimely demise.

I have since separated all the rooms systems onto 4 separate units with much much stronger surge protectors and lowered the wattage of the light bulbs which made the rheostat adjustments very minor. Even if the rheo's were to fail now we are talking a 5 degree increase not a 30 degree one. The only thing sacrificed in this arrangement was a lowered ability to provide UVA enriched spot lighting in the display tanks which is something I am more than willing to live with to prevent that from ever happening again. I would like to explore the idea of an audible alarm still though if anyone has one or knows of one.

Unfortunately I dont believe all the rest of my garters came out of it perfectly. I since have had to move goober into quarantine because he has developed a slight swollen mouth which i am currently treating with hibiclens untill his appt on monday. Everyone else seems to have made it out in top shape though.

What a horrifying experience this has been...IMAG0057.jpgIMAG0059.jpg

[ConcinusMan]

I would like to explore the idea of an audible alarm still though if anyone has one or knows of one.

The springfield remote thermometers have an alarm you can set at a min/max set points, but they obviously won't do any good if you're not home to hear it. I've heard of ones that connect to the internet, or call your mobile phone, but they're spendy. Not really worth the investment unless thousands of dollars in reptiles are at stake.

Anyway, I have two of these base stations, (a slightly different model than the one in the link) each set to a different frequency, and up to 4 probes/remote locations can be monitored per station. I like them. They've worked out well. Well worth the price. They come with one remote but you can buy more sold separately. I set it so that a rather loud alarm goes off if temps go out of the range I set. One winter, this kept snakes brumating in the garage from freezing. Also lets me see the temp at a glance without going out there. Each satellite has a probe you can plug into it, then run it into your tanks. The satellite itself sits nearby, outside of the tanks. Unplug the probe, and the satellite just reads the air temperature wherever it's sitting.


http://www.amazon.com/Springfield-91.../dp/B000W6CRKI

[Artic Exotics]

The springfield remote thermometers:

Amazon.com: Springfield 91049-1 Wireless Digital Outdoor Thermometer with Radio Controlled Clock: Home & Kitchen

This is precisely what i was after. Seriously.. you're awesome.

[chris-uk]

I'm liking this thermometer which I got from Amazon.co.uk, but I can't see it available on Amazon.com -
max min digital thermometer - with in out sensor & high low alarm - ideal for greenhouses & grow rooms: Amazon.co.uk: Kitchen & Home

The temps are accurate to within 1C on both probes (external probe is slightly better from my calibration tests). The thing I like most about the unit is that I can set a max and min alarm. I got it when I planned to brumate this winter to monitor brumation temps. It's a great unit if you can find it available.