Tropical indoor greenhouse heating
Id like to make a tropical plants cabinet, which is aprox 25 degrees and high humidity. The IKEA greenhouse hack is on trend with the cabinet I want to use (2 door Rudsta IKEA cabinet) but I can't find anywhere how people heat it safety and enough, in colder climates like the UK. I have an idea taken from elsewhere but don't know if it will work as I will explain. The heat needs to warm at night and when I'm away, and on 24/7. I will be in bed asleep or away when it is on so I'm trying to avoid a fire where possible (other than to use a thermostat). My flat is aprox 11-14 degrees this winter and colder at night, and the cabinet needs to be consistently about 23-25 degrees.
1. Someone did this for their cabinet and I'm wondering if it's safe: they put reptile heat tape on the outside of the glass using electrical tape to hold it on, to heat the whole cabinet. Reptile Heat tape looks like a large flat mat that has like strips of heated tape. They attached is to a thermostat. I'm wondering if it's against glass like this whether it is safe/could crack the glass. I'm not really after guessing as I could guess it may work, I'm here hoping someone with experience will tell me. I'm thinking of putting the heat tape on one side of the glass. The other side I need to see through so can't. The cabinet back is metal or wood so I can't put it there, so I only have one side to utilise.
2. I don't know whether it will penetrate the glass enough. The person who did this said it worked well for them, but that may be they already live in a warmer climate and the room temperature isn't as low. I have no way to contact them. But I'm less worried about this since they said it worked... however if it doesn't work I would of spent a lot of money on the heat tape and cabinet for no reason.
3. I also am wondering whether it would make my flat too hot in summer when left on 24/7 as I want the heat to penetrate into the cabinet, not go mostly into my flat when it's on all night long. If I'm comfortable at 16 degrees inside but the heat tape is on because the cabinet needs to be about 25 degrees then I wonder if it's an issue.
4. Lastly any other ideas that come to mind? People use seedling propagation mats inside the cabinet for this trend of using the IKEA cabinet for tropical plants (Google and you'll see). However this is useless as it doesn't heat the cabinet, only the bottom of a pot and someone else has said so.
You can use a lamp inside, but there is high humidity to consider and I don't know how safe that is. I also have no room for a lamp, only something flat like a mat. I have no room outside the cabinet to aim a lamp at the cabinet either.
I have tried communities for reptile products and online IKEA greenhouse, but I'm not getting very far to know what to use. People have this trend all over so I don't know how they make it work in this climate.
Comment (1)
Jonathan
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