HabistatHeat Mat, 4 Watt, 5 x 4-inch

47x11 inch.Good quality habistat heat mat, have no concerns about this, have some old habistat ones that are now ten years old and perfectly fine. Just time for a bigger viv. Works as it should, very little to go wrong. Used lots of makes and these seem to be the most reliable long term (though honestly they're all usually pretty good!) Saw a review that says they don't heat up much or don't heat up a material much... while this I'm sure was true it is an ill informed comment so I will explain to avoid others encountering this problem.If you attach it to glass with air on the other side that is going to dissipate a lot of heat. These are made to reach a max of 35 degrees providing they aren't covered, if they are poorly (or not) insulated this will affect their performance. They are designed for ambient radiant heat to go on walls or to be used as basking spots on the floor, with a thermostat set to a specific temperature. When used as designed I've never had a problem. Workings where I do I have used dozens of different ones in a wide variety of situations and this is just how they function. Consider the wattage being spread over the surface area.. this 4 foot one for example is only 60 watts, being that it's huge its not going to be able to get very hot with no insulation or placed against a cold conductive surface. It would have to heat that material too.To improve their efficiency I always put a thin layer of insulation with the reflective side against the heat mat in between the heat mat and the wall. I cover the insulation with heat and flame resistant metal tape for good measure before placing the heat mat. You could do this on the floor too but once again always with a thermostat. It would make cleaning tricky. If they're not insulated the wall or floor they are attached to will heat up, dissipate the heat away from the mat, into the material and then into the room. Depending on the conditions ( i. e. cold room, poor insulation, low down with a draught) this could mean they never heat up fully or to the desired temperature as too much energy is going into the external environment.So unless you have a very warm room, or insulate the heat mat or at the very least the externally exposed area of glass the mat is attached to... these will never heat up as to their full capacity. Not such a problem with wooden/mdf vivariums as they insulate quite well but to provide more consistency and use less energy its always still best to insulate behind them. Makes the biggest difference when it gets cold. If you trace the shape onto the insulation foam side of the insulation and cut it carefully this doesn't even really have to be a noticeable adaptation.On a side note, if you have a powercut, because these are such low power you can run them off a leisure battery for days keeping your reptiles alive. Just food for thought for when things invariably go wrong.

My house is quite cold in winter, and having adopted an unwanted Russian dwarf hamster, I needed to make sure he was warm enough, so I tried this, its perfect! I can honestly say this has kept him alive all winter, it provides just the right amount of warmth for a little animal like Neville, and can be attached to a timer so that it can be set to come on when its most cold, and at intervals during the warmer days.Its discreet, non invasive, slides easily under the cage itself, and plugs into the mains. I have a plastic Ferplast Combi cage, and it has just slightly warped the bottom a little, but I feel if you put something between the two you wouldn't have this problem. I have it under half the cage, so he has somewhere to go to get away from the heat if he wants to.It works by emitting a gentle heat, and warms the bedding, and perhaps a couple of inches above it, highly recommended for small mammals, but always make sure they can get away from the heated areas. I also made sure his sleeping area wasn't directly above it because I thought he'd generate his own heat from all the bedding. On very cold nights I provided an additonal bed on the heating area, but he never used it, so I think his own body heat was enough in winter.

As a new juvenile garter snake keeper, heating has been a bit of a learning curve.I begun by using a cheap 7w carbon printed heat mat from a well-known auction site, which initially worked fine, but eventually burned out & tripped my home's circuit breaker after running continuously for several days. Admittedly it was not running on a thermostat, but it should have certainly been able to run at 100% without breaking and shorting as it was not at all thermally blocked or running noticeably hot.I then transitioned to overhead ceramics using a clamp lamp & ceramic bulb. While these are more stable & controllable in temperature, the heat was not sufficient. My snake was constantly having to sit straight upwards to reach the heat from above, and always felt cold to the touch after removal from his container. As his container is made of plastic, the clamp lamp could not be placed too closely without beginning to deform it.After using the Habistat Heat Mat, he is very warm to the touch after removal from his container (warmer than my hand!), and he enjoys spending his day buried in the shredded paper substrate directly above the heat mat (which is placed under the container) - only coming out to drink & bath. The use of a thermostat with the probe placed inside the container as close to the heat mat as possible set to around 30C is highly recommended, as I have experienced this heat mat reaching over 53C unregulated - which could obviously result in severe burns for any reptile sat directly above it. The main criticism I have about this mat (and heat mats in general) is that it disturbs natural basking behaviour where the snake tends to spend its time buried in the warm substrate rather than basking out in the open where you get to see it. An easy way to deal with this is to temporarily turn off the heat mat when you wish to see the snake, and place a warm basking light above (I have successfully used 40W basking spotlamps in a regular E27 desk lamp for short periods of time, although obviously a ceramic holder is safer for long-term use & permits higher bulb wattages) in order to draw it out into the open. Another problem is that the heat mat does not reduce the high humidity in my container, since it does not affect ambient air quality, which means I must turn on the ceramic overhead lamp at night (when humidity rises) in order to reduce humidity by 10-20%.

Purchased for our African Pygmy Hedgehog. It is perfect. Have it plugged into a timer at the moment as not cold enough to need it on full time, but really does the trick and doesn't use too much electricity. We currently have it sandwiched between two tiles, and it heats them up to "comfortably toasty" in around 15 mins. Arrived quickly and in good condition. Would buy again.

Nice heat mat for home brewing. Cheap, powerful enough, good quality. I wish it had power/temperature mode switch (now I just have to switch if on and off from time to time), but for this price it's totally fine