Electric blanket and heated mattress pad
A resistive heating element in direct body contact for eight hours: among the highest whole-night ELF magnetic exposures in a home unless the element is low-field wound or switched off before sleep.
elf magnetichome
Last verified 12 August 2026.
Also searched as: heated blanket, electric underblanket
- Category
- elf magnetic
- Emission bands
- Power frequency
- Environments
- home
- Duty cycle
- Thermostat cycling; the field appears only while the element draws current.
Field strength by distance
- 2 cm
- 5–100 mGMeasured range — Range reported for legacy resistive elements at body-contact distance; low-field ('dual-wound') designs measure substantially lower.sources: niehs-emf
- 30 cm
- 0.5–10 mGMeasured range — Typical range at 30 cm.sources: niehs-emf
Mitigations, most effective first
- Pre-heat the bed and unplug the blanket before getting in.
- Removes the exposure entirely while keeping the benefit.
- Choose a low-field dual-wound element if the blanket must run overnight.
- Counter-wound elements cancel most of the external field.
Measure with
- ELF gaussmeter (power-frequency magnetic field)
Related records
- Building Biology SBM-2024 AC magnetic field bands
Sleeping-area grades at 50/60 Hz: below 0.2 mG no anomaly, 0.2–1 mG weak, 1–5 mG strong, above 5 mG extreme.
Exposure limits
Sources
- niehs-emf Electric and Magnetic Fields — National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. government, link checked 2026-08-12.
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