Baby, It’s Toasty in Here

Sleeping comfortably in an RV is a “must” for just about everyone — but regulating body temperature in cold weather may require running the furnace, fireplace or even auxiliary heat. A more efficient alternative is to sleep on an adjustable, heated mattress pad to keep shivers at bay.

It’s hard to think about cold nights at the onset of summer, but there’s no time like the present to get prepared for chilly temperatures down the road — or when the weather changes unexpectedly. Unless impractical, we prefer to sleep without running the furnace, fireplace or auxiliary heat. Instead, we sleep on a heated mattress pad — and have been doing so for at least 20 years. Our latest mattress pad gave up (we usually get about five years of service before they fail) and we had to snuggle under our down comforter to neutralize the cold. Finding a new heated pad locally while traversing the country was an exercise in futility, but understandable since retailers typically limit stock of winter items in summer.

There are dozens of heated mattress pads online and once we were located in an RV park for more than a few days that accepted deliveries, we ordered a Sealy Electric Mattress Pad for our queen-size bed that had all the bells and whistles. And just in time; the day it arrived, that night turned out to be unseasonably cold, so we were able to test its claimed features and efficiency. The Sealy heated mattress pad was ordered from Amazon for $109.99; it’s warranted for five years.

This model heated mattress pad comes with independent controls for each side of the bed, which is the way to go. There’s plenty of wiring to route alongside the mattress platform to the nightstands.

We’re not big fans of heated blankets and have found that the mattress pad provides a much more controlled sleeping environment. The plush polyester padding is very comfortable, but for those who are super-sensitive, the integrated wires might be more noticeable; for us sleeping on this pad — and the other name-brand products we’ve used over the years — posed no issues. The heat radiates up from the mattress and warms your body evenly using multiple heat ranges.

This particular model has 10 heat settings and can be programmed to turn off automatically from 1 to 12 hours. Dual controls are a must for us and this pad does a good job isolating each side of the mattress. The controls are a little on the bulky side, but the buttons are user friendly, and the LED readout is easy to see at night. Each controller plugs into its own 120-volt AC receptacle via a long cord to make reaching the nearest outlets possible.

There’s not much to the installation: Simply lay the pad out on the mattress, route the wires on each side and plug the controllers in at the end of the bed. (Make sure the wires are not tucked in below the mattress and are clear of any obstacles.) Elastic along the bottom of the pad keeps it in place and the end pockets will slip over any mattress up to 17 inches thick. The job is no worse than changing sheets.

It takes about the same amount of time and effort to install the mattress pad as it does to change the sheets. The pad fits nicely on this queen-size mattress and the elastic keeps it tidy; end pockets can handle mattresses up to 17 inches thick. Overall, the plush polyester mattress pad is comfortable, but some sleepers who are sensitive to any ripples in the sheets may need more time to acclimate; we had no problem.

Some people get a little queasy about running wires under their bodies, but name-brand pads meet modern safety standards and are completely safe as long as they are used in accordance with the manufacturer’s requirements and warnings (clearly spelled out in the user manual). According to Sealy, this mattress pad must not be used with an inverter or generator because these power supplies may not be stable or consistent. Fluctuations in voltage or frequency can damage sensitive electronic components rendering them unsafe or inoperable, which will impact boondockers.

It takes experimentation to find the right setting for your body temperature. We set the controls to the half-way point on a chilly 42-degree night and both of us had to reduce the setting to No. 3 because it was too hot. Again, everyone’s body temperature is different, but one thing for sure — this mattress pad will keep just about anyone comfy in cold weather without running a noisy furnace that consumes energy and is usually an affront to your hearing sensibilities.

There’s more than enough wiring to route the controllers to nightstands, albeit they are on the bulky side and take up a little more shelf space than we would prefer. Nevertheless, the LED screen is easy to read at night and the buttons to change heat level and auto/off timing are easy to navigate.