What would make a good insulating material for a water bed?
My niece has a water bed. The heater from the water bed makes her room hotter than the rest of the house. I suggested that she take a blanket and put it under the fitted sheet and try to turn the heater down a few degrees. She says that even with the blanket, if she turns the heater down any the bed is too cold.
Turning down the heater is no good. Even slightly too cool sucks body heat. A single blanket under the sheet won't make enough difference. I'm not sure how many you'd need to stop the cold transfer. I'd suspect somewhere around 5 or 10.
Cover the bed with a quilt and live with the room heat. All the years we used a water bed I never noticed the room heat.
Don't most water beds have enclosed bottoms? The one we had did. Actually had pull out drawers. Point being, if the bottom is enclosed, there's little or no heat loss into the room out of the bottom.
My niece has a water bed. The heater from the water bed makes her room hotter than the rest of the house. I suggested that she take a blanket and put it under the fitted sheet and try to turn the heater down a few degrees. She says that even with the blanket, if she turns the heater down any the bed is too cold.
*I had a waterbed decades ago. Instead of buying the expensive thermostat for the waterbed heater at the time, I used a plug-in timer. With blankets on top of the bed the losses were minimal and it was always the perfect temperature at night for sleeping. I don't recall ever having a problem with the room heating up too much.
The problem is that water removes heat from a body 15 times faster than air. When you feel cold, it's because the RATE of heat loss from your body is high. We're perfectly comfortable in 75 degree F air, but we'll feel cold in 75 degree water until we get used to it because the rate of heat loss to water is so much higher. Water sucks up heat like a sponge. Once the blood vessels in our extremities (feet, hands) and just under our skin contract to reduce heat loss, and our skin temperature cools down to 75 deg. F, there's much less temperature drop between our skin and the water, and so the rate of heat loss drops precipitously. That's when we say "we've gotten USED TO the water temperature", and it no longer feels cold to us.
In order to feel comfortable, your daughter is essentially making the water temperature the same as her skin temperature. With no temperature difference, there's no heat loss, and she doesn't feel cold. But, the higher temperature of the water is resulting in heat loss to the room, causing the room to warm up too much. It's like you have a 2000 pound naked person laying on the floor in that room 24/7. The heat loss from their body is sufficient to warm up the room.
I would buy an arctic sleeping bag, unzip it and lay it out flat on top of the water bed bag. Then, make the bed up normally over that sleeping bag. That will greatly reduce the heat loss from your daughter's body to the water, and she won't feel cold even at lower water temperatures in the bag. The insulation in the sleeping bag will reduce the rate of heat loss from her body sufficiently so that she doesn't feel cold, even with much lower water temperatures.
I've heard of two-person sleeping bags which you might consider buying if it's a large bed.
Where is the temperature set for the heater and what is the room temperature she feels is too hot?
The heater is heating the water in the bag so if the room is too hot the heat is coming from the bag itself. Frankly, I can't imagine that happening. We keep our water bed in the low 80s in the winter; in the summer, the heater doesn't even function as the ambient temperature is sufficiently high already.
Insulating the heater will do no good; the opposite, I imagine, as it will just be on longer to maintain the bag temperature. About her only solutions are to turn up the AC or lower the heater (bag) temperature.
Juhn,
Ditto. And I turned the heater off in Summer. It was better than air conditioning in my climate. Don't know what the mattress temp was but it was cool but not cold.
Dave M.
temperature
That's not a good idea.
a water bed. The heater from the water bed makes her room hotter than the r est of the house. I suggested that she take a blanket and put it under the fitted sheet and try to turn the heater down a few degrees. She says that e ven with the blanket, if she turns the heater down any the bed is too cold.
It's been a while since I had one but if my memory serves me I was able to lower the thermostat a few degrees by placing a thick blanket on the bed be fore putting the sheets on. Can't say I was ever very good about making it up though and I don't remember it making the room warmer. But it was just a bedroom and I didn't use it except at night. It might be worth trying a 1" thick piece of memroy foam under the sheets.
It sounds like a really good idea to me. I have a duck down sleeping bag I plan on trying.
temperatures
This is a common problem . You should first check with the water bed mfr before trying out some half-baked theories posted online.
With an IR thermometer you could tell what you need. I would stay away from the white foam. The green or pink extruded will insulate better and have stronger support.
Greg
before trying out some half-baked theories posted online.
OK Lets hear your half-baked theory why a sleeping bag would not be a good idea to use on a waterbed?
One of the nice things about a water bed is the way you can set it to the exact temperature you find comfortable.
If you're trying to insulate yourself from that temperature, something is wrong.
This was all about the room heating up. The bed is normally at 86F, your skin temperature. Shouldn't be much of a room heating issue there.
It occurs to me that the OP could test how effective the sleeping bag would be by simply spreading a sheet of bubble wrap onto the water bag before making up the bead. The air bubbles in the bubble wrap would make for good insulation, perhaps even better than that of the sleeping bag. If his daughter feels warm sleeping on bubble wrap, then that confirms that what's needed is better insulation between the body and the water bag. If it wuz me, I would use two layers of bubble wrap with bubbles to bubles so that you got the full thickness of the bubble wrap as stagnant air insulation.
I think bubble wrap would make better insulation, but I am not sure it would be as comfortable as a blanket or sleeping bag. I may talk her into giving that a try too.
Thanks
It has been a long time since I have seen any bubble wrap with the small half dollar sized bubbles though. Most of the new packing material has brick sized squares.
+1
Especially the part about the water bed making the room heat up. I had one years ago and never saw any such effect. The heater is small, a few hundred watts when it's on, and the water gets heated to what? 90F or so?
The only water bed I ever had was a "hybrid" - it was a foam "bowl" with the water bladder in it - quite effective
I don't have the answer to that at the moment. Some 20 years ago when I had a water bed I kept the thing on 103. That may be because the temperature sensor was not very sensitive.
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