New outdoor home questions
 

Hello all! I need to change my Ibera's outdoor housing as his roof is leaking. My husband is going to build a new wooden house but I have a couple of questions! Hoping someone can help?

Can I use a UV strip light alongside a ceramic heater for during the day? I ask because we have a heater in his current home for night heat and it would be helpful to re-use this rather than install a combi lamp which will require more height.

On the subject of lamps...how tall should we make the house?!

How should we damp proof the bottom of the house? I'm hoping that there is an alternative to tarp which will degrade over time, some sort of varnish? Floor tiles?

Sorry, very novice questions! He is currently in a converted rabbit hutch which was too small for a uv/combi lamp and I want to remedy that in the new house so he doesn't have to come inside on rubbish days.

Thanks for your help :)

You can use a strip+ heat emitter. Height wise, its your choice but I think minimum of 3 foot to accomodate lamp. I just have slabs to keep the base of my wooden housing off the floor. I guess you could treat it, with yacht varnish or ducks back wood treatments.

I agree with burnt toast, slabs are a really good base. Stops anything ie rats finding their way in.

Thanks all!

The current house is on slabs so we will re use those.

Varnish on the inside is easy :)

Lighting...so a T10 strip light and reflector will be ok with heat. Should we add a household 60w bulb too?

I did all this research before getting him and can't believe I've forgotten the finer details!

Thanks for your help :)

Argh the lighting minefield! I'd forgotten all this!

Changed our minds, we are going to put a combi bulb outside instead, just simpler all round I think!

The house is going to be 90cm tall, fully insulated, varnished base inside for ease of cleaning. Sitting on short legs on slabs, combi bulb hanging ready for rubbish weather and tubular heater on a timer for night time heat.

Does that sound ok?

I think you are over complicating things why are you putting uv outside.
In the wild torts will get all the uv they need when they are out looking for food etc on the days it's too cold or wet they will hide away either under a bush or down a hole so not getting much uv your tort will not suffer from having a week or two with no uv after all where do they get it from in the months they hibernate.
A lot of my torts live outside and have no artificial lights what so ever and they are fine.:)

Are you sure Gordon? I'm just being a bit over protective I expect. He was miserable coming in when we had a spell of 2 wet weeks at the end of last summer so I thought I could negate that with a lamp in his house. I've seen a lot of keepers with them and assumed it was a good idea. The new house is half built now, so we will plough on, it'll be interesting to see how much we use it. I'm not planning on having it on every day like I have seen some keepers do, as his natural rhythm seems to work pretty well and he surfaces out of his box every morning between 9 and 10 without a lamp coming on to wake him up.

As long as you have some backup heat in his box set on a thermostat he will be fine which could be a ceramic and a normal spotlight bulb I'm using arcadia solar basking bulbs now as normal spotlight bulbs just don't seem to last as long as they used to.
You could use a all in one bulb for his indoor table as you can get the right hight for it.
Although all in one bulbs are good they are not able to work on a thermostat so are not the best thing to use in any sort of box as they will be too hot unless it's huge.:)
Arcadia Basking Solar Flood lights - Best Prices | Swell Reptiles
https://www.reptiles.swelluk.com/arc...g-solar-flood/

I agree with Gordon, for an outside box you don't need a uv bulb. During the summer mine don't have any extra heat or uv, just cold frames for cooler days.

Ibera's are pretty tough also. If you saw the heat emitted from a wall or stone etc its pretty immense. Sometimes if feels like a 5 bar fire coming from bricks when it heats up. A cloche will raise it by a few degrees too. If you are going for some heat then a ceramic is best in my opinion as it is tougher as opposed to a bulb in the open. those 100w ceramics give out huge amounts of heat. Some people use normal spot lights which do throw out some heat but not like a heat emitter. The sun luminosity and solar output is far greater on grey days than a bulb anyway. I love the ''Gordon are you sure' ? I think I will get it printed on a tshirt ! good luck and photos please as I am sure it will be fabulous area heat emitter or not ! CB