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Comment by reaperducer | Hacker News Reader

I was once desperately poor. Too poor to turn on the heat. But I did have access to friendly cats, so I've been through this experiment in real life.

One cat stuffed under the blankets at night is a significant improvement. But as you add more and more cats, the improvement becomes only incremental.

I eventually learned that two cats was really the best one could hope for. Best positioning is between the legs, and with the blankets pulled up over my head with a little crack for breathing. After that, adding more cats doesn't help much.

If I was still cold after two cats, I had to break down and turn on the heat.

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I can confirm this. Years back I had those (now deceased) two cats who liked to get under the blankets while we were sleeping, but apparently they liked me more than my girlfriend, so until they decided to leave I had those furry warmers lying down along my legs, one here and one there. A couple more cats along my arms and I could easily turn off the heater. House is small though, so max 2 cats at a time to avoid hygiene related issues. These days I have two different cats; one loves sleeping between my torso and the right arm keeping his head on my shoulder, pretty much like a baby, and the other one from time to time climbs on my belly to sleep there after asking permission with a soft meow. Luckily he isn't the fatter of the two:) Cats are incredible.

Have you tried just adding more blankets. I never run heating at night because I find that even at 0c outside I can just stack up 4 blankets and still be warm.

Having slept outdoors a lot in the past, I think many people underestimate the importance of the ground/floor/bed in keeping from freezing.

If you have excess blankets, it could make more difference to put them under you as opposed to above you. Even spruce branches or cardboard will lift you from the ground enough to make a difference in a pinch.

This is why homeless people are stereotyped as sleeping on cardboard with a newspaper as a blanket. Because they actually do, because even paper is a great insulator that you can scavenge easily.

I discovered this on my annual backpacking trip during a particularly cold winter. I sleep in a zero degree bag in a hammock, but my bag has most of the insulation on top so my back was freezing. Next year I brought a nice thick blanket to line the hammock and I’ve always been comfortable since.

Your weight compresses most of the insulation beneath you, and the hammock itself provides less than no insulation. If you aren't, you should put the blanket on the outside of the bottom of the hammock (suspended beneath it), so it has more volume and thus insulation.

Interesting, I wouldn't have thought of that. The blanket is pretty dense and relatively incompressible, but I'll have to try that and see if the difference is noticeable (if I can figure out how to attach it like that).

Yes, this is called an underquilt.

I agree - I packed an air mattress to sleep on during camping when it was cold on the ground. The air didn't insulate as well as I expected so I was freezing from below.

There are so many things around us that are such incredible achievements in comfort over not having them. It is a good experience living without some of them for a while to get appreciation for it:

- electricity - heating - beds - running water - showers - drains (sewer? I mean being able to pour out water in the kitchen, not having to carry it out) - washing machine - (etc)

I regularly go on multi night wilderness backpacking trips–they are a big part of my life and make me happy for many reasons, but the appreciation they bring for the comforts of modern life is big every time.

After several days in the backcountry the comforts come back bit by bit on the way home: a soft and supportive seat in the car, warm or cool air at the touch of a button, hot coffee and eggs brought to your table, fresh water from the tap, a hot shower with soap, clean soft sheets and a supportive bed. It’s really a visceral experience of all of the comforts we take for granted every day.

I’ve been going on trips like this my whole life, and I always love being out there, but the experience of coming back to comfort and convenience never gets old.

The problem with air mattresses in cold weather is that they conduct heat. The gas inside the mattress absorbs heat from your body and transmits it to the edge of the mattress and into the outside air. To be prevent this heat loss, cover the whole air mattress with a blanket or put an insulator between your body and the mattress.

I spent many years in the tropics without air conditioning. But I had a water bed. The waterbed works similarly to the air mattress, absorbing your body heat and emitting it over a large surface area. This is great when the weather is hot. The bed also has a large thermal capacity. Cover it with a blanket during the day and leave it uncovered at night. Then when you lie down at the beginning of the night, it will still be cool from the early morning.

How well would a waterbed work in a camping situation?

> I packed an air mattress to sleep on during camping when it was cold on the ground. The air didn't insulate as well as I expected so I was freezing from below.

No sleeping bag?

No, for some reason I decided to use a regular duvet. With a sleeping bag it would probably have been less of an issue.

I was going to say, I never really understood why sleeping bags seem to be the default for camping but I get it now.

They're warmer, more comfortable, easier to carry...

yup, I go camping in the Canadian winter and have been overnight many nights at below -35C, might have hit a balmy -40C before.. not sure..

Below, is super important.. I use closed-cell mats designed for winter camping and carrying in the backpack.

Somehow I don't think the cats would work so well under the sleeping bags..

Interesting bit of trivia: at -40 it's not necessary to specify C or F, that's the point where they're both the same.

When I was a kid in the boy scouts, they had an award they gave out when the total low (with wind chill) on the days you camped added up to -100F. I got the award one weekend - one day was -60, the other was -40.

It is necessary to specify it because what happens if someone tells you it was -40 and then it got 1 degree warmer. How cold is it now?

Obviously it's -39, and since -39C and -39F are different you'd now be required to specify. If you knew which scale the 1 degree was from it wouldn't be difficult.

It's -40 and it got -1 degree F colder. How cold is it now?

It's now -41F. It's not really rocket science, unless you're trying to trick me with a double negative.

I spent a full winter sleeping on a second story screened porch (it was a private porch off my very small bedroom and I figured that since I didn't mind sleeping in the cold, I might as well save the floor space in my bedroom and move the bed to the porch).

On the very coldest nights I would get out my 10˚F mummy bag, and use a couple blankets on top of that, but I was never uncomfortable, even well below zero (Fahrenheit).

Getting _out_ of bed was pretty miserable at times, but it was only a few steps to the door into the house.

0C? That's pretty warm. I sleep naked under a goose down duvet with the window open in an unheated bedroom even when the outside is -15 C. Now I'm on my own it does get a bit cooler than before but when there were two of us under the duvet it was plenty warm enough.

I'm guessing you're in a dry climate. 0c can feel colder than -5c~10c if it's humid enough.

Yes, eastern Norway. And as it gets colder the humidity goes down. It's typically less than 50% here in the winter.

I can recommend hot-water bottles, plus a kettle for quick assembly. It's a lot less cozy though, I suppose.

But also a lot less hairy I imagine

Less catbutt on your pillow.

Electric blankets were pretty awesome for this circumstance. Incredibly cheap to operate, extremely effective.

(I always had trouble washing them properly though)

Electric blankets used to be awesome. The ones nowadays don't seem as strong as the ones I remember from 40 years or so ago. I think they got nerfed.

(40 years ago they also used to burn houses down)

I remember having one... It had no ground wire... Thinking about it now, I'm really surprised I never got electrocuted or that it didn't catch on fire, it was really flimsy.

Electric blankets aren't intended to be used while you are in the bed. Your own body heat can keep the bed warm and they're dangerous to run while sleeping. Their intended purpose is to warm the bed before your own body is in there to do the work. It avoids the first few minutes of sheet shock when jumping into a cold bed before your body heat catches up to the task.

There are different types of electric blanket.

eg this one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Morphy-Richards-Washable-Underblank...

All night use

NOTE: Blankets are perfectly safe to be used all night. However we recommend using the heat setting below.

•Move the heat setting on the control switch to heat level 1or 2.

These settings will provide safe and comfortable heat to sleep on all night.

These settings can be used to air the bed.

WARNING: Always ensure that the slider switch is moved to the OFF position when you get up the next day, or after airing the bed.

I can't really tell if this is truth or fiction but either way your comment warmed my day.

But how many such comments would you need to read per day to replace panel heaters would you say?

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