By Christian Parr
Keeping reptiles in captivity is fun, rewarding and, for most of us, it’s down right addicting. But the hobby is full of challenges that will always test our abilities and ways of thinking. One challenge many keepers will experience is the sudden loss of electricity or heating during cold weather conditions. With this in mind, the question for today is: What will you do when faced with the loss of power and/or heat in cold weather conditions? In this article I would like to talk about what I do to prepare for these types of situations and offer a few other ideas that you may be able to use in your home.
The first thing to keep in mind is that not all situations will be the same and not all animals have the same requirements, so it’s important to know exactly what your animals require. Winter storms can cause power failures. It could also be a failure with your home’s electrical or heating system. There are many situations that can, and most likely will at some point, cause you to make adjustments so that you can keep your animals safe from cold temperatures. It’s also possible that our own good intentions for back-up plans may fail. For example, if your only emergency plan is to have a generator, what happens when your generator won’t start? It’s best to give yourself multiple options to handle these cold weather situations. My goal is to have a plan in place so that my animals are affected as little as possible. I don’t want to be moving things around or rushing to get things set up when the power goes out. I want things to be as easy as possible while still being effective.
Ok, let’s talk generators. Generators are a common solution for power loss. But not all generators are the same and there are many different options to choose from. Additionally, we all will have very different power level needs. It’s absolutely critical for you to know how much power you need to run everything for your reptiles safely. The purpose of this article is not to figure out what generator best fits your needs, but I will share a few things to keep in mind.
A few years ago when I started keeping just a few geckos I had a 3600 watt generator. This worked perfectly for what I needed. It would run the two racks of geckos as well as a few enclosures I had set up. It could also run a small 1500 watt space heater when needed as well. In addition, I could run a few lights in the house and the refrigerator which kept my wife happy! However as my group of animals grew and I got a chest freezer for my feeders, I found the limit of the generator, as well as a very major flaw with my emergency plan.
I use herpstat thermostats for all my temperature control needs. Herpstats have a low voltage shut-off, so that in the event the thermostat doesn’t have sufficient power levels to operate, the thermostat will shutdown to protect itself from damage. So what would happen is every time my fridge or freezer would cycle, they would draw enough power from the generator that the power levels would drop low enough to kick all of my herpstats into the low voltage cut-off mode, killing all the heat in all my enclosures and racks. Thankfully, it’s not my only plan (more on that later). Having discovered this, I needed a bigger generator to run everything since my needs had grown. Also worthy of remembering is that generators are machines. I know, shocker right? Keep in mind, machines require maintenance and upkeep. They will fail (Murphy’s Law and all), and of course at the worst possible time. The last thing you want is for your generator to fail in the middle of a winter storm, so it’s best to make sure it’s kept in the best working condition at all times. With all that in mind when you have the right generator for your situation it is a wonderful tool to have.
Now, how exactly will the power from your generator get to where you need it? The best and most expensive way is to have a whole home generator system installed. These systems are designed so that when the power goes out, they automatically turn on and will power your entire house. These systems are often thousands of dollars, but they are extremely convenient if you live in areas that lose power often. In my opinion the best way to use a traditional portable generator is to have your generator connected to a switch panel that feeds your home’s load center (panel box). This way in the event of power failure you can flip a switch, start the generator, and your house will be powered. Depending on what size generator you have, you may need to turn a few breakers off to things that use a lot of electricity. Well pumps, hot water heaters, heat pumps, things like this that use a lot of energy that may not be absolutely essential in an outage so you don’t overload your generator.
Though this works, installing a switch panel and plug for a generator to be properly connected to your panel can be an expensive, labor intensive process and could be extremely dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing. If it’s not something you completely understand and know how to do, it’s always best to call an electrician to install it for you. Please don’t electrocute yourself! If this method isn’t something you want to do, you’ll need to run extension cords from your generator to your set-ups, likely requiring a few chords and power strips here and there, depending on your setup.
The next area I would like to talk about is heating your room in the event your main heating source fails or goes off when you lose power. One option is to use a portable space heater. If you have a total loss of power, you can power the electric space heater using a generator. But what about a heat source that doesn’t require any electricity? In Northeast Pennsylvania, where I live, it’s common for people to use natural gas or propane fireplaces to heat their entire house. The best thing about gas fireplaces in my opinion is in most cases they require no electricity to run as most of them start via battery power.. In the event of a power outage in cold weather, I can now simply turn the fireplace up.
I use a wall mounted unit that can easily heat my room to well over 80 F degrees if needed. Most reptiles can spend a good amount of time with ambient temps in the low 80’s. This has become my favorite tool when dealing with cold weather emergencies, to the point where I’m installing another one to heat the rest of my house. This was fairly inexpensive to install (under $1000). Again, if this isn’t something you’re comfortable installing, seek professional help. After all, it is gas and fire you’re dealing with–don’t burn your house down or blow yourself up! Now, I understand that wall space is at a premium in most of our reptile rooms, so having a heater taking up a few feet of wall space isn’t ideal.
So for situations like this, they do make small portable propane burning space heaters that are safe for indoor use, and are typically less than $200. Most will run off of small 1lb canisters or a 20lb tank. Just make sure it is safe for indoor use. When propane burns, it gives off moisture, so it won’t dry your room out. If your room isn’t well ventilated you may need to crack a window or open the door to keep the humidity down to prevent condensation. I also highly recommend getting a carbon monoxide detector to ensure safety for animals and people alike. Remember that propane gas is a low lying gas, so keep your detectors low. Typically the best place in this scenario is in wall outlets or power strips. There are probably other options out there to heat your room in emergencies, but this is something I use and have had extremely good results with thus far.
One last thing I would like to touch on is your room in which the animals are kept. Some of us keep our animals in our basement; others, in a spare bedroom or perhaps even an attic. But it’s important to know and understand your room or area you keep your animals in. Check windows, doors, air gaps, insulation and other areas for spots cold air can get in or let the warm air out. It’s a good idea to make your room as energy efficient as possible. If it doesn’t hold heat well this will make keeping the room warm in an emergency difficult to manage. It’s also a good idea to check for potential hazards as well such as outlets, plugs and places with a lot of wire. These are the common places electrical fires can start when a lot of power is being transferred. Each room is different so you will have to examine yours to determine if there is something you can improve.
Finally, let’s talk about the small, simple things that can work for smaller collections. These may not be ideal methods, but if you’re in a pinch they’ll work if you have a small collection. It would be very easy to keep heat packs you can use. One idea is to keep a cooler big enough that you could put all your animals in bags or deli cups and then put a few heat packs in the cooler with them. Just make sure they can’t get in direct contact with the heat packs and they have plenty of oxygen. Also if you have a few animals you can find ways to use your body heat to keep them alive. You can put your animals in bags or cups and put them under a blanket with you. Things like this will work, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it because it will likely put unneeded stress on your animals. The last thing you want is a cold stressed animal. It would be much more wise to create a better plan so the animal can stay in its enclosure.
These few things are my main tools I use for cold weather emergencies– they haven’t let me down, and honestly I can’t see how it could. I have gone a few days without power in the winter and this has proven to work extremely well. In fact, my animals almost see zero effects when the power goes out, because I took the time to plan and prepare for situations just like this. Of course, each time I deal with a situation I try to learn new ways to improve on how I can better protect my animals in cold weather emergencies. Are there better ways and better tools? Maybe. I’m sure there are plenty of other ways to achieve the same goals. This is simply what works for me. The question is, are you set up and prepared yet? What steps do you need to take to keep your animals safe? I hope this helps you start thinking of ways to prepare for emergencies of this nature. Maybe you already have something in place, but can you make it better? There are also many other types of emergencies we should be prepared for, but for this article I decided to focus on cold weather emergencies (tis the season!). Do yourself a favor, don’t wait until that unexpected, bad storm knocks the power out. Make a plan. Test that plan, and make sure you’re prepared. That’s it for now my friends. As always, enjoy your reptiles.
