How safe are 12 volt electric blankets ?

ebee:

I know people of my generation noticed our parents etc had a common liking for electric blankets - stems, I think, from the days that it was common to have badly fitting sash windows and open coal fireplaces. Ventilation was king but it could be bloody cold in winter. No wonder electric blankets were so  popular.

They were certainly not a luxury in my grandparents' unheated bedrooms, but they were put on for a period before bed time and turned off on getting in.


With sufficient lagging, no heating is required.

Update re this. 

The 12 volt electric blankets are no longer used, no specific danger was observed but continued use seemed like an avoidable risk.

The loft insulation has been improved, and warmer bedding supplied.

Winter bedding=brushed cotton sheets and three thick wool blankets. Children have decided that blankets have to be  N.O.S from Poland VIA fleabay because “it is very cold in Poland”

Wimps, there was never any heating in the bedrooms when I was a kid, until my Dad built us a new house with central heating when I was about nine, but it only went on in the bedrooms to take the chill off before going to bed and never stayed on for more than half a hour a day.

Gosh. When I was a kid in the 1950's, my parents had an electric blanket. For warming the bed before they got in it.

In the 1970's, my pals and I used to go off ski-touring in the winter in the Sierra Nevada mountains in California. With good sleeping bags. A pal had a very good one – that he had to leave open while sleeping in -10° to -20° outside. Because his body temperature was retained; because the heat-loss gradient through the bag at those outside temperatures was negligible.  

The point being that there is a bed covering for any room/outside temperature you are likely to encounter in Britain at any time of year. It may not be the one you have. But you can get one.

I don't heat my bedroom. In winter it is typically 14°-16°. A common-or-garden duvet suffices. If I don't feel comfortable, I use an additional loose sheet under the duvet. 

You can keep as warm as you want with appropriate bed insulation. So get it. What is supposed to be the point of an electric blanket? 

An electric blanket is cheaper to run than heating the whole bedroom, but sufficient warm bedding, such that body heat suffices is better still.

IMHO, electric blankets were popular in the 1950s and early 1960s with people still suffering from wartime and immediate post war shortages of decent bedding. An electric blanket was cheaper to buy than a couple of decent wool blankets, and a lot warmer than either pre-war blankets that were now worn out and not warm, or government surplus blankets that were better than nothing. As a child I had four blankets on my bed, two government surplus ones (too small, very rough, not very warm) and two pre war blankets (bigger but very thin and not warm). Just about sufficient in average winter weather, but not in very cold weather.

Some people used HOME MADE electric blankets ! Designs for how to make your own were even published.

broadgage: 
…..

IMHO, electric blankets were popular in the 1950s and early 1960s with people still suffering from wartime and immediate post war shortages of decent bedding. An electric blanket was cheaper to buy than a couple of decent wool blankets,

Ah, good point, I missed that. We had eiderdowns. Not from an eider duck, and not down, and probably pre-war and second-hand. I went on a school trip to Germany, experienced a duvet, and from that point on understood the disadvantages of British (and US for that matter) bed covering habits, namely tucked-in sheets. 

Never had the radiator in my bedroom on in thirty years of living in the house.  

Seems ridiculous to heat over a thousand cubic feet of room to keep six cubic feet of person warm

Equally ridiculous to spend large sums of money on insulating the room when insulating the bed is both cheaper and more effective.

I do miss the ice on the inside of the windows which was a feature of my childhood.