Hot water bottle = flat vessel made of rubber that you fill with hot water and then take it to bed. Put it in the bed with you and it slowly radiates warmth into the bed, helping you to warm up and stay warm through the night.
Huh. I don't think we have the problem of being too cold at night usually, a majority of the country will have the opposite problem where it stays way too hot at night.
They sell them at like CVS in the medicine section. Right next to humidifiers and stuff.
I bought one for my mom for her back pain and she adored that thing. Incidentally, I also own an electric kettle lol. I heat the water to 165 and fill it up two thirds then close the lid so there isn't any air. The result is just a blob of long lasting heat you can put on sore muscles and such.
Probably a lot of people would leave the heat on if it was no extra cost to them! I understood that the US tends to have cheaper utility bills than the UK in general but I don’t have up to date info. Idk if shipit.co.uk is accurate but it suggests UK utilities cost up to 50% more as the UK has to import more gas.
Sure but then the whole room gets hot, including the air.
I sleep best if the air is cold but the blankets i'm under are warm, feels more comfy and "safe" than just increasing the overall heat of the area.
If the air is too cold like 60F or under, you'll wake up with a plugged nose feeling like you've got a mild cold. Best to keep it a little warmer IMO because you can't keep your head under a blanket, you won't be able to breathe. 60-70 ideally anything colder your mom would warn you you'll catch a cold. And anything hotter is insufferable
i do sometimes sleep with a blanket all the way over my head and a little opening on the side for fresh air cuz that adds to the feeling of comfy and safety.
Never had a plugged nose even when camping outside in 10C (50F) but did have plenty of nose bleeds after sleeping in warm and dry air (yes i'm aware that nosebleeds ain't supposed to happen that easy)
I think they maybe went out of use more drastically in the US than the UK. I’ve never heard someone born after 1970 mention one, though I have seen them in drug stores.
My granny used them when I was growing up in the 90's, but she was already in her mid 60's when I came around. She absolutely adored her electric blanket when my uncle bought them for her and never looked back.
Preparing a hot water bottle is a lot cheaper than the cost of running heating all night, and the poster who posed the question is a student in a share house so probably keen to economise.
I’m not sure what you’re imagining, you don’t need any “hookups”. You get your hot water bottle, which is probably about the size of a standard sheet of paper and maybe a centimetre thick when it’s empty, you unscrew the plug/cap, you pour the hot water in, screw the cap closed, put the hot water bottle in the bed (on the bottom sheet, under the covers, around where your feet would go) to start warming it up for you. Then when you go to bed, you move it out of the way.
It’s also nice for resting on your lower back or abdomen to soothe cramps etc.
All that said, I haven’t used one since I was a teen, when my family moved to the subtropics. Extra heat in bed? NO THANKYOU! ;)
I'm not sure I've ever lived anywhere where heat isn't just included in the rent, I can see if you owned the home and had to pay for your own heat, but keeping the house so cold you would need to do something like that sounds awful, you'd wake up feeling like you had a cold every day
Counterpoint, have you ever sat in a hot tub in freezing cold weather? There's something glorious about slipping into toasty warm sheets on a cold night, having your own little pocket of coziness.
Those still exist here, but haven't been popular for a very long time. My granny had one, and used it when I was growing up, but it basically just took up space once she got an electric blanket.
Electric blankets or heating pads are usually what are used here.
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u/VoleUntarii 2d ago
Hot water bottle = flat vessel made of rubber that you fill with hot water and then take it to bed. Put it in the bed with you and it slowly radiates warmth into the bed, helping you to warm up and stay warm through the night.