It sounds like a contradiction, but heating your waterbed with a quality waterbed heater can actually help you conserve energy during those long, cold winter months.  The cost of using waterbed heaters can range anywhere from $8.00 - $12.00 a month during the coldest months of the year, depending on how warm you like your mattress to be, but there are several things that balance out this cost as well as things you can do to keep this cost down.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that with a waterbed, you can sleep much more comfortably at night with your thermostat turned down.  While conservationists often tell us to set our thermostats at 65°, the thought of sliding into a cold bed and waiting for it to warm up with our body heat isn’t pleasant.  On the other hand, waterbed heaters give us a much more pleasant scenario.  The room is cool, but we slide into bed and are immediately enveloped in soothing warmth.  Even the sheets are already warm and inviting!

Look for waterbed heaters that are double-insulated and have an automatic shut-off in the event of overheating.  Both of these elements will help conserve energy if the unit malfunctions.  Also be sure to invest in a full-size heater pad if one isn’t included with the waterbed heart itself.  This helps disperse the heat more evenly, eliminating hot spots and heating the water more efficiently at less cost.

When installing waterbed heaters, always drain the waterbed completely to ensure flat placement of the heater.  Then set the mattress back in place and refill with warm water.  Using warm water to fill the mattress is the difference between sleeping on your waterbed that night and waiting up to a week for it to reach the correct temperature.  It also prevents your waterbed heater from having to work overtime for several days, saving you quite a bit in energy costs.

It simply isn’t comfortable to sleep on an unheated waterbed, even during the summer months.  But with the highly accurate digital thermostats on today’s waterbed heaters you can certainly turn the temperature down a bit during warm weather.  Because it takes a few days for the temperature to adjust (simply because so much water is involved), you can start in the Spring by setting the temperature a few degrees lower, then waiting several days to see if the temperature is still comfortable.  Repeat until you find a setting that’s right for you during the hottest months of the year.  In the Autumn, do the same thing to get waterbed heaters back up to a warmer setting.

Finally, don’t get lazy with your waterbed!  The simple act of making your bed every morning will insulate your waterbed mattress, trapping the heat that’s radiating from the mattress and holding it in.  Because heat rises, a lot of warmth can escape if you don’t keep the mattress covered.  By making your bed, you retain the heat that waterbed heaters are working to produce, keeping your energy costs low while giving you comfort and warmth.