Heating Winter Tortoise Houses

Len B

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10 Year Member!
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Aug 3, 2010
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Location (City and/or State)
Southern Md - Northern Neck Va
I live where it gets cold during winter. I at the moment have 5 sulcatas of different size and ages. They are from less than 2 years to 25 years old and from about 4 pounds to 150 pounds. They each have their own area and heated house. We are experiencing temperature's that usually don't come for several days in a row until later next month. This morning around sun up i went out to check to see what wattage I was using to keep the temperature in each house up into the 80s where it should be when the outside air temperature is below freezing. I don't use thermostats, just rheostats so this is a constant wattage usage. The total wattage was 769 watts for all 5 house's. Our high temp today was 42F and the wattage use never increased or lessened to maintain good temps. Insulation is the most important thing when building a house for a tortoise in a cold winter environment. The second most important thing is the heating setup, not just what you use for heating but how the heating systems are placed in the house and what settings are used to regulate each heaters output using rheostats instead of thermostats.
 

Len B

Well-Known Member
10 Year Member!
Joined
Aug 3, 2010
Messages
4,986
Location (City and/or State)
Southern Md - Northern Neck Va
I'm very happy with it. That averages out to about 120 watts per house. That's hard to do with an indoor enclosure for a sulcata of any size in winter like weather.
 
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