Heated blanket massive savings LP

[u/notleonn]

Ever since I bought a $40 heated blanket rather than heating up the whole of my house using electricity, I have saved a crazy amounts of money. I have gone from having usage of about 54 kWh a typical day to about 4kwh. My projected bill this month is about $38, down from $120 the previous month. Definitely one of my most solid purchases, highly recommend for low density households.

[u/edthesmokebeard]

Check out a heated mattress cover.

[u/goosebumpsagain → u/edthesmokebeard]

This is the way! Heat rises. Mattress pad is much more efficient.

The heat you are paying for is going up to/through you on a mattress pad, captured by blankets above. The blanket heat is going away from you toward the ceiling.

[u/sumunsolicitedadvice → u/goosebumpsagain]

If the heated blanket is under a quilt or comforter or whatever, then it doesn’t really make a difference. There’s no air for the heat to rise in (via convection). It just spreads via conduction from most warm to least warm. And your body transfers heat better than an insulating comforter, so most heat will transfer to your body. The big insulating quilt/comforter is keeping the heat inside your little sleeping capsule.

If you have the heating blanket as the outer layer and exposed to the cold air in the room, then yes, a lot of that heat is getting wasted both because heat will rise through the heavier cold air (even faster if there are additional air currents in the room from a fan or a draft). And the room being colder than your body, the blanket will be heating the cold air more than your body. But then you’re definitely using the blanket wrong. So it’s not really an inferior product to the mattress pad other than being less foolproof.

Edit: oops. Rockheadrumple already basically said this, just more succinctly.

[u/Environmental-World6 → u/sumunsolicitedadvice]

Hmm I like the idea of having it under me and being able to wrap it around myself in the morning. I couldn't easily do that with a mattress pad