I don‘t know why we hadn’t done it before, but I just bought some electric mattress heating pads. It’s more of an experiment than to try and save any
money. It might allow me to lower the BR temp while we sleep, it might only make my wife more comfortable. Either way, I think it’ll be worth it…if they last.
I decided to do this after buying and seeing how effective a pet one is for our dog in his crate at night. He‘s always restless and sheds like crazy, so the bedroom was out of the question. We were keeping him in the small guest bathroom, but that was not practical. Now, with the heating pad under the plastic bottom and a cloth draped over the crate it gets nice and toasty in there. The pad only draws around 75W on high, so not much cost added. I was sure the 75W would be only good for mild temps, but now I’m not so sure; it was pretty warm in there with the living room at 50.
Our dog is reactive and pretty high strung and always antsy (we have trained the heck out of him and he’s on meds, which help). He refuses to sleep while we’re out and about and he shuffles around at night. With the heating pad on low during the day he spends a ton of time in his crate, actually lying down and sometimes even snoozing. That’s never happened before. He’s almost always underfoot.
Anyway, I’m hoping that the mattress heating pads will be just as beneficial. With the cost of electricity going up recently, I’d rather be sleeping cozy in bed with the heat warming me directly. If they are really warm I might even be able to talk my wife into dropping the heat a bit. As is, at 60-63F I only use a thin blanket. Every so often the temp will get down just below 60F; if I feel cold I have a second thin blanket, but thats rare. My wife, however, uses a comforter pretty much year round. As I’ve said before, she controls the thermostat in the BR. If she wants it warmer, that’s what we do. I think I’d have to put my foot down at 70F+; that’s too warm for both of us to sleep.
