Temperature control Snakeroom.

Many snakes I keep come from a moderate climate and/or live at great elevation. As the snakeroom is the place all snakes are kept in.
This means it is very important that the temperatures in the snakeroom, especially at night time don't get to high.

When a snakeroom is isolated well, temperatures do to all the lamps and other warming equipment rice fairly easy. Also, temperatures stay stabile do to the isolation and many times
bad ventilation. This can come in handy when you keep reptiles from warmer climates. But for the snakes that live in cooler climates, or need a great cooling down at night like many montane living snakes, this can cause many health problems.

As my main interest goes out to species that need these cooler temperatures. I needed to find a way to control the snakeroom temperature to prevent long term high temperatures.
Talking to several other hobbyists made me come up the idea to use the outside temperatures to cool the room temperature.

In hot summer the temperatures at night in my country normally don't exceed 18 degrees. Even in Summer this is cool enough for many snakes kept in the snakeroom. Of course in spring, autumn and winter the temperatures are much lower.

To "pull" the cooler air into the Snakeroom I use two big tube ventilators normally used for ventilating bathrooms and offices. In the summer these ventilators go on at sunset, and turn off at sunrise. This makes the room-temperature at night cool down at least 10degrees. Perfect for the montane species and viper species from the Caucasus. Also I prevents a building up of the heat making the day-temperature lower than without the ventilation. Making the room "cool" enough in the summer for species from cooler climates.
In late summer and autumn this creates a natural drop in temperature making a graduate transition to the hibernation.
Overall the difference between day and night time temperature is on average 10/12degrees Celsius.

As some snakes I keep also come from a more warm climate I don't keep on the ventilation in winter. Hibernation of the other animals happens in a separate room and/or in a adjusted cooler.

Now the basic room temperature is as needed. We now can use this to produce a ultimate temperature gradient in the enclosures. How I do this, and use this cooler room temperature to my advantage is described in the topic "Basic terrarium" at the snakeroom section.

Warm air rises, cool air "falls". This means in a snakeroom several layers of temperatures exist. All the lamps and other warming equipment enhance these layers.
Placing the enclosures in a higher or lower layer also this can be used for the better. Placing a enclosure of a species from a cooler climate in the lower levels. And a terrarium that needs higher temperature, a higher place in the snakeroom.