Do any of you use an electric blanket at home? I'm curious about these as an energy saver and also for certain bug-in situations.

From a safety POV, I have to say that I'm pretty leery of electrical wiring embedded within flammable material. And yet, the blankets I see on the shelves are apparently approved by all the right agencies, and they can even withstand machine washing and drying. They must be reasonably robust.

I'm thinking of using it in an always chilly sitting room in our house. But I'm also thinking of it for power outages, where a small genny would be swapped around in sequence, keeping fridges, freezer, sump pump, and main furnace going. I would still have a few hundred watts to spare. The queen size electric blankets seem to run around 130 watts, which is very do-able.

And then, of course, there's fluffy car camping in the early spring and late fall shoulder seasons to save on the outrageous cost of mountain resort hotels.

I'd appreciate your thoughts, experiences, and cautions.

For many years my wife and I used an electric mattress warmer (Mattress Warmer), which traps the heat under the blankets. We normally keep our house temperature at 600F at night and found the mattress warmer a good way to warm up the bed before we would get in for the night. We would then lower the setting on the mattress warmer to the lowest level and was quite comfortable.

The mattress warmer died a few years ago and we decided not to replace it and just suck it up for a few minutes when we first get into bed which is a little cold. We now use a synthetic comforter, which works really well once our body heat warms up the bed.

Pete

One year in university, I had an uninsulated bedroom. (It was intended to be a sunroom so had lots of windows. It was kind of like winter camping with walls and a roof to cut the wind and snow. That was a really cold winter. A glass of water on my bedside table would freeze overnight but I was super toasty in my bed with my mattress heater. It was a gift from my grandparents and over 20 years ago, so I have no recollection of the make or model but, man, it worked really well, as long as I didn't drink too much before bed.

As a reformed Miinnesotan, i can say that electric blankets are cheaper and safer than space heaters, as well as using much less power....

For bug in, are you thinks of using a regular one via an inverter?

Or getting one of the 12 volt car ones?

I would suspect the 12 volt ones would be cheaper to run....

Rather than an electric blanket, try fleece sheets.

we sleep with the windows open and temps here can get down to freezing.

i like the mattress warmer - be sure to turn it on 15 - 20 mins before you go to bed! nothing like getting into a nice warm, cozy bed.

we don't use the mattress warmer since we bought a "middle weight" down comforter. love that too. it's light on top of us, cold when we get in, but is actually too warm when the overnight temp is > 50F.

y m m v

I use a Wiggy's bag on my bed. I don't think it can get cold enough in SD for me to ever need more than that!

Thanks for the responses! Living in a winter climate, I'm always looking for creative ways to beat Jack Frost and dodge high energy bills.

Sleeping warm is never a problem. Lots of warm comforters, fleece blankets, and arctic sleeping bags if needed.

I am more interested in certain waking situations -- creating a low-energy-consumption micro-climate where I can read or type without distraction (or gloves). My three-season sunroom comes to mind -- beautiful winter views on a sunny day, but not warm enough to sit and enjoy. In my little writer's cabin too, an electric blanket would give quick heat while the old wood stove slowly gets up to speed. And, it's a lot more economical than firing up an electric space heater.

I think it's worth a try. Time to keep a close eye on Boxing Week sales.

try sleeping under a electric blanket on a heated water bed!!!
i did that for a few winters in a wood heated cabin.later i got rid of the water bed and slept in a down sleeping bag with a wool blanket over it.the cold coming up from a mattress in a unheated room is the killer.sleeping on top of layers of wool blankets helped but i had some nasty back spasms until i moved to a real house in the city and a bedroom that was kept a bit warm so the mattress did not hold the cold.

I have avoided electric blankets. For sleeping I use 2 duvets and a hot water bottle. I like the feel of the weight of the duvets, and they provide a lot of insulation. The water bottle can be filled from any source. Normally I use an electric kettle, but I also have a gas cooker and, in a pinch, coal.

(I live in the UK. I gather Americans have a different attitude to kettles on account of their mains power being less.)

Huh? Do you mean a lower voltage? I expect the reason electric kettles are less common here is that most homes have gas cooktops, which work very nicely to boil water for tea. High wattage electric kettles apparently used to be hard to find in the USA, but that's no longer the case.

I too have an electric kettle.

I use it to boil water for making both tea and coffee.

For coffee, a very labor intensive Melitta coffee maker is used.

The Melitta coffee maker is fine with 200 F degree water from any source, be it an electric kettle or a copper kettle sitting on a camp stove. If I can boil water, I can make coffee (or tea). Once I got this and started using it, I realized my old Krups filter and pot were essentially the same except that they were part of an real turn it on and walk away coffee maker. I could easily turn that filter & pot into a manual system and make an even bigger pot. You just need to be able to boil water (even if the electricity is blacked out).

If your coffee filter sits on the pot rather than being part of your coffee maker, you too can go manual.

All of which has nothing to do with electric blankets, but then I don't use or like electric blankets.

I am afraid getting electrocuted by the blanket.

I have used an electric mattress pad for many years now. My current one was a post-winter Walmart sale; $40 for queen size. We also use it for warming up the bed and then turn it down to #1 (or off; my wife sleeps warmer than I do). The cats do not provide enough heat for the two of them and the two of us.

We turn the house thermostat all the way down at night but the room temp rarely drops lower than the upper 50's since we re-insulated and re-windowed the house.

For staying warm while reading or TV I add a stocking cap (no hair any more) and if it is running colder in the house I have the old insulated bib overalls I used for cold weather motorcycling. Fleece sweatpants are also a help.

"I am more interested in certain waking situations -- creating a low-energy-consumption micro-climate where I can read or type"
Doug, have you ever heard of a kind of coat called a "Fishtailed Parka"? http://www.fishtailparkas.com/
It will keep me warm in a gale.

i wore a fishtail in Korea and whatever that white looped inner shell was made of really kept the cold out.
with the high cost of heating homes there are lots of adult footed pajama sort of cozy things around these days.

At least the Pajamagram version is lacking a "trapdoor". It's set up so that you have to take off everything from the top down.

I loved my blanket. Had one growing up - it did fine with the occasional accident. Had another one when I lived in Detroit. That house would literally have a breeze go through it, since the windows were so poorly sealed. Kept the house at 58 for 2 winters - the blanket allowed me to at least sleep well.

For being in a cold room I wear Ugg boots while working at my computer (which is most of the time). I even have poor circulation and they keep me warm.

Also there is a lot of heat loss from the top of your head, so wearing a hat will help keep the rest of you warmer too.

Occasionally, I will also put a small throw over my lap when it is colder, or sometimes I wear long underwear. I have been thinking of getting some flannel-lined jeans (LL Bean has them).

I don't use it, but our cats love to sleep on a an electric throw blanket. One of these on your lap ought to keep you plenty warm. I just saw these at Walmart for around $30.

Yes, the lower voltage means they take twice as long to boil water as UK ones. We in the UK also have gas cooktops, but an electric kettle is quicker for boiling water. (Seriously: I sometimes boil water in a kettle before pouring it into a pan to use on the gas hob.)

Anyway, the point is, there are many ways to boil water, and if in a survival situation you can't manage it, then you have bigger problems. Where-as an electric blanket depends on solely on electricity. (Which is fine if you have a generator with some spare watts, but that's not my situation.)

It's the wattage, not the voltage, that matters. Apparently, years ago, high-wattage kettles were not available in the US. That's no longer the case.

Funnily enough, I'm visiting my mother and her electric tea kettle has failed and we're heating water for tea in a saucepan.

We recently got one,Im very impressed by it.

The rate at which water can be boiled in an electric kettle is indeed related to the wattage, but in the real world in most situations, the available wattage is determined by the voltage.
Here in the UK we use 240 volts and most domestic outlets are 13 amps, the highest wattage kettle is therefore about 3,100 watts.

In the USA 120 volts is used and most outlets are 15 amps, that limits kettles to about 1,800 watts or not much more than the half the UK ones with a consequent increase in the time to boil.

In theory a 120 volt, 30 amp kettle could be manufactured and would boil slightly quicker than a UK one, in practice though no one would buy it on account of the expense of instaling a non-standard 30 amp outlet.

A UK type 240 volt kettle could be used in the USA from a 240 volt outlet, but these are non standard and not worth installing to boil water a bit quicker.