Low cost heat bulbs

[Mrfuel]

Hi all, I broke my heat lamp bulb. My local home improvement store has 125watt bulbs for $0.84, is there any reason I need to buy one from the reptile shop for more money? I can get 12 bulbs for the cost of one.
This is a heat bulb only, I have other sources of good UV light including lots of natural sun for my tortoise...I barely use the UV light indoors.

 

[Taylor T.]

There is no reason to not use a regular bulb so long as you are not relying on it to produce UVB. The 'flood' type incandescent bulbs are the best at spreading the heat around.

 

[Tom]

WIth the exception of specialized UV bulbs, I buy all my bulbs at the hardware store. I use 65 watt flood bulbs. I buy the 6 or 12 packs made by Sylvania.

125 will run awfully hot. What are you heating? Why such a high wattage bulb. My concern is that more incandescent heat leads to more carapace desiccation and pyramiding for a young growing tortoise. If you have an adult russian that is done growing, this is less of a concern. If you have a 4" sulcata, this could be a serious issue.

 

[Mrfuel]

To be honest, it's what was on sale...turned out that I somehow broke the lamp as well as the bulb. So I also bought a brooding light, and had to re-position the heat lamp higher than its original height.So far the 125 watt light is keeping the enclosure at 83°.

 

[ZEROPILOT]

What type of tortoise?
I've used the "frosted" incandescent bulbs for Redfoot before. Redfoot would be stressed out by too much light.

 

[Tom]

To be honest, it's what was on sale...turned out that I somehow broke the lamp as well as the bulb. So I also bought a brooding light, and had to re-position the heat lamp higher than its original height.So far the 125 watt light is keeping the enclosure at 83°.

There are four temperatures to know and maintain: Warm side, cool side, basing area and overnight low. Where in your enclosure is it 83?

What species and size tortoise are we talking about?

 

[Mrfuel]

83 on the warm side, mid 70s in his hide, working on getting the light set correctly to get his basking spot in the mid 90s...the new light is different in the reflector department....Russian, approx 4.5"