Using a heated mattress pad to turn down the heat more at night

[Daox]

I just reprogrammed my thermostat to drop down to 50F while I'm away at work each day. It stays at 70F when I am at home and awake, and its currently programmed to stay at 60F during the night when I am sleeping. I am seriously considering and wanting to drop it down to 50F during the night to see the additional energy savings. However, I am pretty sure that this is going to be fairly cool. I am trying it tonight for the first time, so we shall see how it goes over. Does any one have any tips/ideas? I'm obviously going to load up on the blankets and dress more warmly than normal.

In the event that it is too cool, I am also looking for input on heated mattress pads. I know a few people here have mentioned using them. How do you recommend using them? Do you have any suggestions on brand or any features to look for?

[sunspot]

Originally Posted by Daox

In the event that it is too cool, I am also looking for input on heated mattress pads. I know a few people here have mentioned using them. How do you recommend using them? Do you have any suggestions on brand or any features to look for?

We use a heated mattress pad. Single best thing I've ever bought. I've since bought one for my elderly mother. She claims it's one of her two favourite things of all time.

Both my wife and I prefer to sleep in a cool - ok, cold, - room but a freezing cold bed is no good. Heated mattress pad to the rescue. We turn ours on high (it has separate controls for each side) a couple of hours before turning in. When we go to bed we turn it off completely and climb into a toasty bed ;-)

Simply can't say enough good things about the mattress pad.

Greg

[jeff88]

Is there any way to calculate the energy delta of how much energy it takes to heat to 50 compared to heating to 60 and the energy consumption of the mattress pad for however long you plan to use it per day? Or is that something you're going to have to measure?

When my gf and I went to look at mattresses, we REALLY liked the hot and cold dual temp zones pad at sleep number. We didn't end up getting the bed, so we didn't get the pad, but we can for oir current bed (it's not limited to sleep number beds).

[Daox]

Well, from my limited research, mattress pads really don't use much power at all. Gary from builditsolar.com basically did what you're asking and the mattress pad sleeping comes out WAY ahead. Obviously there are variables in play here, but here is at least one example.

ElectricMattressPad

Energy Used:
I measured the power consumption with a Kill-A-Watt meter, and got the following:

setting Power
1 9 watts
2 17
3 25
4 33
5 43

A full night of power consumption for my half was 0.16 KWH -- I am guessing that it would be about 0.25 for the two of us. So, the cost per night is (0.25 KWH)($0.1/KWH) = 2.5 cents.
Energy used 0.25 KWH per night.

...

Cost Saving:
Cost of electricity:
Electricity used is 0.25 KWH per night, or 91 KWH/year.
At 10 cents per KWH, this is worth $9.10.

Savings in Propane
Gallons of propane saved per day = (22400 BTU/day)/(92000 BTU/gal) = 0.243 gallons per day, or 89 gallons/year
At $2.20 per/gal, this is worth $195 per year.

Net Saving:
Net yearly saving for the electric mattress pad = $195 - $9.10 = $186

So, the payback is less than one year!!

[MN Renovator]

Mine will use 77 watts on high and heats a full size bed.

If I have it on high all night, I'll wake up covered in sweat and then need to wash the sheets.

I found the best way of doing this is to stack two comforter blankets on top of eachother and then I'll use somewhere between off and 20% power at 55 degrees, 20-40% power at 50 degrees, and 40-60% power at 40 degrees. The mattress pad controller just cycles the power on and off over a 2 second period, for example at 20%, it will be on for .4 seconds and stay off for the rest of the 2 seconds, and repeat.

So basically it can be 40 degrees inside the house and I've had plenty of warm and cozy nights using 31 watts. So basically if I sleep 10 hours, I used .31kwh. I won't miss the 4 cents. If I sleep for 8 hours, it is 3 cents.

The additional cost to keep the house consistently at 70 is 17.51 times that much cost.

Basically heating the house the additional 30 degrees takes about 6600BTUhr. Heating the bed with me in it to a cozy temperature takes about 105BTUhr.

When its all said and done, people who sleep with space heaters in their rooms are doing something stupid. I'm getting ready to kick out the person I'm sharing my house with because they just showed up with a space heater last week along with a pile of misinformation about how it would save money. There's more to it than that and I'm quite livid about it.

[Daox]

The first night went very well setting the heat way back. I'm not sure it even got down to 50F by the time the heat kicked it up to 60F for me to get up. If it did, I didn't notice. All I did was unzip a sleeping bag and throw that over the comforter, and I was fine. Maybe I need to set the heat back sooner? I'll play around with it and see.

[pinballlooking]

Originally Posted by Daox

Well, from my limited research, mattress pads really don't use much power at all. Gary from builditsolar.com basically did what you're asking and the mattress pad sleeping comes out WAY ahead. Obviously there are variables in play here, but here is at least one example.

ElectricMattressPad

Thanks for posting this I had never seen the ChiliPad mattress topper. My wife has bad back pain I ordered one of these for her I hope it will help.

[Higgy]

We just use flannel sheets. Works fine.

[Daox]

Yeah, I have flannel sheets on the bed too. Those definitely help.

[Daox]

Its been about two weeks since reprogramming for 50F nights. I'm honestly quite happy to say that I haven't been cold at all at night, and am sleeping very well. No heated mattress pad has been used.

I'd recommend more of you guys try setting your temperature back farther at night. Even if its just a few degrees more, it isn't costing you anything but a minute or two to reprogram your thermostat.