 |
Back to Caimans Forum Forums Home Members Area
Caimans Forum
Caiman12003 CaptainJack Caiman12003 |
| Member | Message | ||
|
Caiman12003 View Profile |
Check out my new photos!
I’ve added a few more photos to my photo section on this site. Check them out! If anyone is in the northeaat and is passing through the Poconos and would like to visit and see my setup, let me know. My phone number is 610-381-4090. --Mike |
||
| 07/07/07 07:49pm |
|
||
|
CaptainJack View Profile |
Message To: Caiman12003 In reference to Message Id: 1349641 Check out my new photos!
did you just build all of that into a room of your house? thats insane and some sweet specimens. grats. how much did it run you? and how is the visibility/ maintenance? |
||
| 07/21/07 09:56pm |
|
||
|
Caiman12003 View Profile |
Message To: CaptainJack In reference to Message Id: 1368949 Check out my new photos!
Sorry about the late reply. I haven’t looked at this website for several days and just saw your comment. Me and my deceased wife designed and had constructed our entire house as a virtual "live-in zoo". The house was designed with the caimans in mind. The visibility is tremendous. The separation wall between my living area and the caiman area is almost all glass, enabling almost full visibility from my area into the caiman areas. There are 10 skylights and a number of windows in each wing. I am in the Poconos and the land and the construction of this huge house was relatively inexpensive. The biggest cost is heating (an oil burner). The winters in these mountains can be very cold and the two wings of the house are kept very hot and humid. The extensive fluorescent lighting is not very expensive because the electric rates are relatively low here. Our house sits on 1.56 acres that is mostly filled with trees, other than the cleared area for the house and driveway. The structural framework of the house is not "stick built". It is mostly concrete block on the outside. The house is so strong and well built that in winter, when it is 5 below outside, I may still have to crack open a window in my area, even though my area isn’t heated! The heat from the wings, even with the sliding doors closed, heats and insulates my living space, keeping me very warm even on the coldest days! The biggest initial problem was a mistake in the original design where the ceiling of the wings did not have the proper ceiling panels and insulation. Moisture got behind the water resistant panels and rotted out the panels from the non-moisture proof side and rotted even the beams. It was very costly to replace the entire roofs, but in doing so we went from 5 skylights on each wing to 10 skylights and had ceiling panels installed that were resistant to moisture because they were not the usual wallboard materials but much heavier concrete/mesh boards that are used to waterproof bathrooms and other high humidity areas. There you have it! The cost of the land and the home is not very much. The cost of heating is relatively high. The next highest cost is the crickets and Zophobus worms for all the little lizards and treefrogs that inhabit the wings. A shipment of these "bugs" are delivered here every 10 days to 2 weeks. The work of feeding the caimans, cleaning the pond filters and watering all the plants is not small, but it is doable without being overly taxing. There is no substitute for listening to the crickets singing, the treefrogs croaking and the caimans roaring and the waterfalls flowing in the background as I work or as I sleep. Anytime I want to go to the Amazon, I just have to open a glass sliding door and enter! And who else can claim that their caimans ask to come out of their sections (by knocking with their snouts on the sliding glass doors), so as to walk around my living space! This happens almost every day! If you are ever in my area you are welcome to visit. --Mike |
||
| 07/28/07 05:32am |
|
