Words cannot describe how good it feels to wrap yourself into one of these when you’re cold.
I heat my house with just a heatpump but it can’t quite keep up when it gets well below 10 degrees celcius and I’m too cheap to turn on electric radiators. I bought an electric blanket for 22 euros and I just heat that instead. Even just sitting on it makes a huge difference.
Can confirm!
Before I got my place sealed up I had a small one I put under my fitted sheets. That with a hefty regular blanket on top and it could get into the negatives before I was ever even slightly uncomfortable.
I prefer hot water bottles but that’s just me.
I know that electric blankets are much safer than they used to be but I have a lot of anxiety related to fire, so just not for me.
I like electric space heaters, but: I bought a cheap Chinese one a few years ago that somehow rewired itself. Like, the “off” setting became “low heat”, “high heat” became “fan” etc. I took it apart to see how the fuck that could possibly happen. The dial switch included a little roller contact that moved over a printed circuit board sort of thing to determine the setting; if the heater got too hot (imagine that!) the switch solder would melt and then re-flow into a different pattern, causing the switch to work completely differently. Just unimaginably hazardous.
UK folk, Silent Night have a model that you put underneath your bottom bedsheet. I have one in the bed and one on the sofa with a blanket on top and they have been going strong for years if you’re looking for one that will last
US has them too, they’re called electric mattress pads rather than blankets.
YMMV, but the cheap one I bought only lasted two winters before the electric part died, while the more expensive two I bought have lasted five years and counting.
I would not want to cover myself in a fire hazard
My understanding is that they used to be a fire hazard a few decades ago, but have improved significantly in safety since. Plus you don’t have to sleep with it on; using it to warm up the sheets before you crawl into bed is often sufficient, depending on your climate. Or you can use it elsewhere in the house, such as on the couch or a reading chair.
I keep my heat set to 60f/15.55c and use heated mattress pads on my bed and couch to make it tolerable. It has been between -7f/-21.7c and 24f/-4.4c this week, and it gets colder, usually mid January.
The cost to increase my heat from those temps to a somewhat more comfortable temp is literally hundreds of us dollars per month in gas (in addition to just getting to those temps from the outside temp), where the heated pads running 24/7 increase my electric bill by only a dollar or two a month (hydroelectric in my case, so hands down better, price difference aside).
The difference in operating costs is insane between heating an airspace and heating a body.
Heated blankets are a bit of a different thing; iirc they get warmer because they are meant to be above you, but could work the same way with that properly taken into consideration. You don’t get the sudden warm most of the time when using them under you, but it does help keep your core temp up. So lovely!
I’ve done this same thing for years and I love it! I splurged a few years ago and got a sunbeam mattress pad that has wifi so I can turn it on before I get into bed.
Generally speaking, when using resistive heat, it’s best to use them as little as possible. Direct application to your body (electric blanket) is cheaper than heating the air (heat strips in hvac air handler).
Some people think that using one of those oil based electric radiators is cheaper than a heat pump but it’s not.
All resistive electric heaters have the same efficiency, regardless of their shape, methodology, or what the manufacturer prints on the box. That efficiency is 100%, i.e. all of the electricity put into them gets turned into heat, one way or the other. The same amount of electricity (up to and including the locally specified legal maximum for a standalone appliance, which in the US is 1500 watts or roughly 12.5 amps) becomes the same amount of heat. It doesn’t matter if the manufacturer put “for large rooms” or “for small rooms” on the box, or what. 1500 watts is 1500 watts.
However in ideal conditions and specifically for the purposes of heating, a heat pump can achieve efficiency of over 100%. Which sounds impossible, but only until you realize that a heat pump’s method of operation is not to create heat but rather to move heat that’s already there from the outdoors to inside.
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I use an electric bed heater (goes on top of the mattress, under the sheet) and use it to preheat my bed before I get in. My bedroom doesn’t have any source of heat so it feels so goooood.
I feed my wife Taco Bell and she prewarms the bed for me.
We have those at our cabin. The building I often sleep in is unheated too. Late in the fall, it can get near freezing. It feels crazy to start undressing in a cold cabin, but then when you slip under the blanket, it’s like sliding into a warm pocket. Quite euphoric.
it’s like sliding into a warm pocket. Quite euphoric.
And 12 volt blanket can run off a solar powered battery, free warmth yay
My furnace has been out for two weeks and I live in Canada. Me and my cats have been living under a heated blanket over the holidays
They’re also really nice, placed just under your fitted sheet on the bed… Crawl into a pre-warmed bed that keeps you warm without an overly large/heavy blanket
Aren’t the cheap ones also a fire hazard?
Nah, just plug it into the power strip with the space heater and set it up against the hot water heater for maximum cozy.
Honestly… Once but never ever again! Awefull. I get into bed under a down duvet and it warms up in seconds. It’s the only way (for me)
I have a cushion sized electric blanket and it really is better than you could ever imagine
always gave me headaches
