Why?

I acquired a sulcata tortoise, Howie, in the summer of 2004. Howie spent the winter of 2004 / 2005 in our living room. He had the run of the room, and we provided a plastic dog house (see parts list below) which he slept in.

As the winter of 2005 / 2006 approached, it became clear that my understanding wife was not keen on spending another winter with Howie in the house. I need to provide a heated house outdoors for him.

Sulcatas do not hibernate in their natural habitat and must be kept warm during the winters. We have fairly mild winters where I live, but still way too cold to leave Howie unprotected.

Parts List

• Doghouse - Thinking Outside - purchased at Sam's for around $70.00
• Heater - 150(?) Watt IR emitter
• Thermostat - ritetemp GPMG8045 thermostat (used for electric baseboard heaters) - Purchased at Home Depot for $17.97

Assembly

There isn't much to this. The most difficult thing is first finding and then wiring up the thermostat. I located several really nice greenhouse themostats with really nice prices. See, for example [[ ]]

Alternative Thermostat

I found another type of thermostat that might work. It is called a Thermostatic Outlet and they have one for cooling as well as for heating. You plug the Thermostat Outlet into an regular electrical outlet and plug the heater into the Thermostatic Outlet. The one designed for heating cuts in at 35 F and releases at 45 F - too cool for Howie but it might be possible to adjust the trip points. I have not tried one of these.