Electric blankets or hot water bottles

The nights in winter often get quite cold depending upon where you are, and it doen’t matter how many blankets that you have – you still cannot get warmer. The answer may well be to get comfortable under an electric blanket, which is just plugged in to the mains supply. It would appear to be quite obvious, wouldn’t it? If you don’t like the sound of this, choose a hot water bottle instead

Well, not really. Electric blankets, unfortunately have a bad reputation. As recently as a decade ago, they had a tendency to injure their users, by causing electric shocks, burns or even fires. Older electric fires are still causing thousands of fires a year today, and people who can’t feel heat can still be burned even by safer modern electric blankets.

If you use them with some care, electric blankets are safe enough providing you avoid buying secondhand and you can sense the heat. You don’t have to sleep with the blanket switched on all night, you could disconnect it just prior to going to sleep. Avoid getting the blanket wet, and mixing the electric blanket with other blankets. As another precaution, you should replace it every few years if the condition deteriorates.

For many people, though, having to deal with all these risks to use such a simple thing seems too much trouble. The best and most common alternative to the electric blanket is probably hot water bottles, as hot water bottles cool down rather than getting warmer over time, and can be fitted with special soft covers to avoid burning you. They are obviously much cheaper and make great unusual gifts.