when your house is kept at 68 degrees...

[theimmortaljedi]

as it gets colder in my house would a higher watt basking bulb work, or would it be better to use to basking spots?

 

[Twobeardieguy]

Yes a higher watt basking bulb will work! Just make sure the temps are in ideal range! Good luck..

 

[midwestreptiles]

Where i live we dont use much heat during the winter to cut costs. And my reptile room temps drop during day and night. To avoid having to change all my bulbs and crank my heat tape on my racks i just use a floor heater on a timer that comes on at night mainly but sometimes during the day which helps keep my ambient room temp around 80 which means i dont need to change bulbs

 

[Pravius]

Where i live we dont use much heat during the winter to cut costs. And my reptile room temps drop during day and night. To avoid having to change all my bulbs and crank my heat tape on my racks i just use a floor heater on a timer that comes on at night mainly but sometimes during the day which helps keep my ambient room temp around 80 which means i dont need to change bulbs

Would imagine a floor heater would suck up more electricity then bulbs or cost more then a gas furnace?

 

[midwestreptiles]

Not really its only on just enough to keep the ambient up. Not all the time. Plus i dont know exactly the type but the one i use is elongated and uses heated coils not the fan type that have a heat coil and a fan that run using way more energy. If you do the math lets say in my case where you have 12 adult cages, 8 juv cages, and 24 hatchling cages roughly and most only require a 50 watt bulb to keep a 110 basking, some use a 75 or 100. Keeping those size bulbs in and using a heater on a timer which only uses maybe a 100 w in short periods VS. Replacing all those bulbs and then having 12 150W bulbs, 24 75W bulbs and 8 or so 100-150 W bulbs. Just add up the Total Watts being used. This method works good for an entire room. If you have a single or stack of cages maybe just changing out the bulbs is better i would say.

 

[Pravius]

Oh well then yea with that many I can see... and wow it would take like an hour just to change out those bulbs!

 

[midwestreptiles]

Haha yea and not cost effective. with a tank or two i could see just upping the watts. But with a whole room it works great. Same with summer we dont use ac so i just have a nice energy efficient window unit that comes on for 10 minutes here and there to keep my temps down during summer