How do you
keep an albino alligator happy? No this isn’t a
joke off of a Laffy Taffy wrapper, I’m
talking about the albino alligator at the World
Wildlife Zoo in Litchfield Park, AZ. Their albino
alligator habitat needed a bit of heating up and
guess who they called? If you said Warmzone, you
are right! The World Wildlife Zoo has a reputation for
building impeccable habitats for the animals they house,
and Warmzone was happy to help out.
Radiant heating isn’t just for people anymore!
Our clients are constantly coming up with new ways
to use our products that have never been done
before. Radiant heating has already made it big in the
home heating industry, and now serves animal home
(habitat) heating. Alligators get cold too after
all!
In order to
entice the alligator to spend most of its time near the
visitor viewing window, Zoo experts embedded twenty
square feet of Danfoss TX radiant heating cable
into the bottom of the albino alligator habitat.
The natural habitat for albino alligators are primarily
freshwater swamps and marshes located in the
southeastern region of the United States. The
heating cables helped imitate the natural environment
found in much of Florida.
The Danfoss
TX cables were embedded in a slab of cement at the
bottom of the aquatic portion of the habitat. The
cement is used to retain water and is also a good
conductive material for radiant heat cables. The TX
cables were originally meant for indoor underfloor
heating projects. A standard TX cable installation
involves embedding the cables in a thin layer of
thin-set, which is very similar to the process used by
the experts at World Wildlife Zoo.
The complete
heating system installed by the World Wildlife Zoo runs
in conjunction with a TRF-115 indoor/outdoor floor
and slab sensor. The sensor ensures the perfect
temperature all the time, without the need of
manual operation by zoo attendants and maintenance
crews. Now all they have to worry about is keeping
the habitat clean! The heating system will take
care of itself.
Albino
alligators do not survive long in the wild. Their
coloring makes it hard to hide from predators,
making them prime targets for an afternoon snack.
The white coloring is in fact a rare genetic condition
that causes them to be born with a lack of pigment. Not
only does this cause abnormal coloring, but makes
them highly susceptible to the sun’s UV
rays. As a result, albino alligators are extremely rare
in the wild and the only place you’ll be
able to see these animals are places like the
World Wildlife Zoo.