I have always heard and read about how warm wool blankets are, but when I bought a brand name blanket to use at home, I found that I have never slept colder under any other type of bedding in my life. Is there something wrong with my blanket or is wool more marketing than substance?
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Weight has something to do with it. Quality matters with wool products. My BIFL wool blankets are only used during the coldest nights of winter because of how effective they are.
Wool is also going to allow evaporation. Lots of fleece doesn’t. So basically you’re stewing in your own night farts and associated moisture and that may give you a feeling of warmth. I’d venture to say that you are actually warmer with wool, there is just air exchange and that is perceived as cooler.
If you have a knit or crochet blanket and you aren’t using a flat sheet, then the fan/air is just moving through it preventing it from warming up.
Those good old itchy wool blankets from the military will turn you away from wool forever, at least it did for me.
Wool breathes. Assuming your fleece is made of a man made polyester, it does not breathe. It’s trapping the air in and with it the heat
A wool blanket with a glossy smooth finish will feel cold, a fuzzy finish will feel warm. If you wash it once or twice it will fuzz/loft up. It’s the air trapped that gives the insulation/warmth.
What you want to do is have flannel sheets and the wool blanket on top of that and even a sheet or blanket on top of that. Then the wool can trap a warm bubble of air.
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I got some vintage blankets off Etsy. They are 100% wool, and the warmth varies depending on the weight. And they are warm.
It could be that you have a wool blend, a lighter weight, or just that the old blanket are made better.
From my perspective, one of wools best properties is maintaining warmth when wet and breath ability. Not sure a bed blanket is the best option.
Though I have used some Navajo blankets that were excellent. But they have a specific breed of sheep for their wool.
You don’t have to lie… you used a wool blanket and were cold af when you where in the holding cell in jail…🙃😂
TL;DR Wool blankets function differently than duvets or comforters. They are better in a lot of ways but you need more of it for the same affect.
Any form of bedding insulation works by trapping air. Heat is just particles moving really fast, and warm air particles are moving particularly fast. Cold air doesn’t move as fast, but if it interacts with hot air, it steals some of the heat energy from the hot air so it can move faster too (thus becoming warmer)
The air around your body takes heat from you in order to move faster. And when it does that it usually moves faster *away* from you, where it crashes into other air particles and gives those air particles some of the heat that came from you. Feeling cold is basically air stealing heat from you to give it to all its air-friends.
Bedding and insulation work by trapping air and stopping it from passing on its energy to its air friends. Instead it just has to bounce around next to you with nothing to give its extra energy too. Ever wrapped yourself in plastic wrap? Did you get really sweaty real quick? Air can’t move through plastic wrap, but your body needs to be able to give *some* of its extra energy to the air or you get too hot – and start sweating.
Polyester bedding is quite similar. It’s literally made out of plastic. You don’t need a lot of Polyester to block air movement because it’s quite dense. But that thin-and-dense quality that blocks the air from being a heat thief makes it really easy for water to be a heat-thief. Water is much faster at stealing heat from you, and also has a much easier time at passing it across a thin barrier. If you get too sweaty and it’s humid outside of your bed, you can start to loose heat again. (This is also why you get so cold quickly after a workout even on a warm day, lerformance fabrics are all made outbof polyester)
Wool is different. Wool doesn’t block air, it just throws up a really complicated obstacle course. Particles will eventually get through it, but how long that takes depends on how big the obstacle course is. Because of that, you need more wool to properly block air from running away with your heat faster than your body can produce it. But because it’s an obstacle course and not a barrier, air that runs away with your body heat *also* runs away with your sweat particles. And because you need more of it to be effective, the quality that makes it really hard for air to find its way out also makes it really hard for water to find its way out. So if you get too sweaty, you’ll still keep water from stealing your heat at the same time you’re stopping air from stealing it. (This is why thermal clothes for tramping are made out of merino wool)
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