Electric Blanket Smallest Heating Wires Award [Editor’s Choice]
One of the most frequent questions we are asked is: Which heating blanket
or heated mattress pad has the smallest wires? When people ask this question, the most obvious thing on their mind is comfort. So we measured each manufacturer’s heating wire sizes.
Heater Wire Sizes Compared:
Each manufacturer uses the same heater wire in ALL of its models of electric blankets and electric mattress pads. Here are the results:
|
Manufacturer
|
Wire
Shape
|
Cross-Sectional Area
|
Compared to the Winner - SoftHeat
|
|
SoftHeat
|
Round
|
.0016 sq. in.
|
Smallest
|
|
WestPoint*
|
Round
|
.0044 sq. in.
|
2.8X larger
|
|
Biddeford
|
Round
|
.0077 sq. in.
|
4.8X larger
|
|
Sunbeam
|
Oval
|
.0082 sq. in.
|
5.1X larger
|
*No longer produces Heated Blankets, only Mattress Pads.
The SoftHeat Low Voltage wires were the smallest by far.
Heater Wire Flexibility:
Most people are concerned with the size of the heater wires. Just as important in our thinking is the flexibility of the heater wires.
The SoftHeat due to its small size is also clearly the most flexible. The Biddeford and WestPoint heating wire comes in the middle and lastly we found the Sunbeam heater wires to be quite stiff and inflexible.