Heating During Fall/Winter Seasons?

So I was wondering how fellow beardie owners that live up north keep their room's a steady, decent temp in the harsh winters? My house was built in the 50s so its all oil heat, and there is no heat upstairs where him and I live, and I live in New England so it can get pretty damn cold.

I just became a beardie owner in the spring so this will be my first cold season with him (I predict a lot of worried posts from me when he probably brumates :lol: ) and I'm just wondering if anyone has any clever ideas? I was told to stay away from heat mats but I'm going to be really needing the extra heat without baking my beardie with a higher watt bulb. Naturally his night temps are going to be my biggest worry, but I've read that red lamps throw off their sleeping patterns and can throw off digestion because they can still see the light. I've seen the words 'ceramic heat emitter' thrown around in some posts but not sure what it is or what wattage would be right for his 40 gallon.

Should I invest in some kind of space heater for the room? Is there one that won't make my electric bill go crazy, and just turn on/off when it needs to like my AC? Anyone experienced with beardies in a colder environment in winter with some advice and tips would be greatly appreciated, because I keep worrying about it as the days creep closer to season change.
Thanks guys!

I would think you'll have a heat source for yourself in your room, but your best bet for your beardie is a ceramic heat emitter. They give off heat without light at night. I'm not sure what wattage you'll need to make sure the tank is about 70F at night. Here's a picture of one. I lives out west, so don't have to use them as I leave my living room at 74F nightly (I have 2 geckos who need the extra heat) and my beardies and geckos are all in the living room (I keep my room colder with the door closed).
http://www.exo-terra.com/en/products/ceramic_heater.php

You can get them at any petstore usually. That's just the first picture I found when I searched it. You can replace your basking bulb with it as long as you're using a deep dome. Don't put it on top of your beardie, just to the side, as it gives off direct heat. What size is your tank? As that will make a difference on what wattage you get.

Hope that helps!

sweetiepie9":34igp2mt said:

I would think you'll have a heat source for yourself in your room, but your best bet for your beardie is a ceramic heat emitter. They give off heat without light at night. I'm not sure what wattage you'll need to make sure the tank is about 70F at night. Here's a picture of one. I lives out west, so don't have to use them as I leave my living room at 74F nightly (I have 2 geckos who need the extra heat) and my beardies and geckos are all in the living room (I keep my room colder with the door closed).
http://www.exo-terra.com/en/products/ceramic_heater.php

You can get them at any petstore usually. That's just the first picture I found when I searched it. You can replace your basking bulb with it as long as you're using a deep dome. Don't put it on top of your beardie, just to the side, as it gives off direct heat. What size is your tank? As that will make a difference on what wattage you get.

Hope that helps!

Click to expand...

It does, thank you! I do have the deep dome lamps, so I would just swap out the basking bulb with the heat emitter once the light goes out for the night? What do you mean to the side, also?
..and its a 40 gallon, what wattage would you recommend to keep it in the 70s at night?
Thanks again for your help

While I live on the north coast of New South Wales in Australia and only about 3 - 4 km from the Pacific Ocean and even closer to Australia's largest salt water lake (Lake Macquarie) which combined moderates our winter climate significantly (rarely gets cold enough to get a frost here overnight) , we still get very cold (by our measure) here in winter overnight and regularly have night time temperatures outside in the range 3 - 5 degrees.
So we don't get the polar-like temperatures many American and European beardie keepers experience (many degrees below zero F or C) so our we need less extreme heating methods here.

My home is over 50 years old with HardyPlank exterior cladding and a cement tile roof. I renovated about 20 years ago and while recladding I took the opportunity to insulate the external wall cavities with glass fibre wall batts, and the ceilings with high insulation rated Pink Batts and all my living room and bedroom floors were carpeted, and we took the opportunity to install the largest Fujitsu split reverse cycle a/c system available (oversized for our modest abode) which runs 24/7 in winter (thermostat set to 25oC) so it rarely gets below 20oC inside our house in winter.

None the less, I've taken steps since my 2 beardies were little 6 week old hatchlings to provide night time heating for them in their enclosures by way of a 7W heatpad attached to and controlled by a simple (cheap) switching thermostat which runs 24/7 year round , set to maintain 36-37 oC.

Furthermore, since I don't want to risk burning the beardies (should the heatpad / thermostat develop a fault and overheat (this happens sometimes I believe) I sandwiched my 2 heatpads each between 2 layers of ceramic wall tiles.
This evens out the temperatures across the pads and tends to reduce cycling of the thermostat and also makes the heat pad safe to install inside the beardie's enclosures.

I place my beardie's hides onto of the heatpad , and the hides are positioned below the P38 spot lamp which is the prime heat source and light source in my enclosures , the top of the hide is the primary basking spot.
At night, even in summer, most nights, my 2 will either sleep ontop of their hide or (as is more often the case with Rex, will retire under the hide to sleep overnight).
So my 2 beardies have grown up having ready access to a nice warm refuge to nap in during the day or to sleep in overnight if they choose to use it and essentially never experience chilling or temperatures below 20oC.

Works a treat will my 2 , who have never , despite being 3 years old, brumated.

My heatpad / thermostat setups have worked flawlessly for over 5 years, I do regularly check them with a heat-gun with a small spot.

Some keepers here use CHEs to provide lightless overhead heat sources in winter at night for beardies who are not bromating over winter and even in summer, some inland places here get frosty overnight even in summer sometimes. This works too.

I have read that some breeders here put their bromating beardies into shoeboxes what go into a nice dark chest of drawers over winter , but again the temperatures in most people homes here rarely get lower than the teens C in winter.

Yes, you'd put the CHE into the basking dome but move it to the side of your dragon, so the heat isn't going directly on hin/her, that's what I meant. And I would think a 100W CHE would be more than sufficient to heat the whole tank for the night and keep the ambient air in the tank to 70F

Practice here with using CHEs is a bare ceramic socket (no dome) surrounded by a wire cage to prevent reptile climbing onto , leaping onto or otherwise touching the very hot CHE. Will burn the animal very seriously if it touches it.

Also the CHE is usually on either a dimming or switching thermostat with it probe placed appropriately.

Different here in Canada/USA, CHEs are put in deep domes that have ceramic inside to prevent heating too much. The dome is put on top of the tank top so dragons can't get to them and are only used at night.

sweetiepie9":u9ivmac7 said:

Yes, you'd put the CHE into the basking dome but move it to the side of your dragon, so the heat isn't going directly on hin/her, that's what I meant. And I would think a 100W CHE would be more than sufficient to heat the whole tank for the night and keep the ambient air in the tank to 70F

Click to expand...

Thank you so much for your help! I'll feel a lot better now in the coming fall and winter months