How to clean your electric blanket

[Flowersflowers121]

Hi everyone!

I got an electric blanket for Christmas and want to give it a wash. I stupidly threw the instructions away with the packaging, so am left with only this label haha

Does anyone know the best way to do it? Any degergent/pod? Fabric softener?

Any help welcomed hahaha thanks in advance :)

40 degree hand wash - so any detergent. I don't use fabric conditioner.

I wash mine in machine on a 20 min quick wash and dry flat.

Shove it in like your sheets, 30 degrees, one of those sheets with natural detergent in, not the heavy liquid pods, no fabric conditioner, bobs your uncle

Unplug the lead and gently hand wash and leave to dry, laid as flat as possible over an airer outside.

Why would you hand wash it?? Just bung it in the machine, you'd never get it dry for a start as won't have been spun, lunacy

Thanks all!!! 😀

Because I prefer not subject an electrical item to extra force from tumbling within a machine and potential weakening the electrical circuit. It also allows me to keep the unplugged end free from water Ingress. Electrics and water plus the extra forces involved in a washing machine cycle can shorten the life span of what is a very expensive product, with a huge potential to catch fire if damaged - damage which cannot always be seen by the human eye given the cabling is within the channels of the blanket.
I was it in the bath, allow it drain and then drape it over a laundry rack outside on a warm, breezy summers day. As I don’t use it during the summer, it’s immaterial wether it dries in half and hour or three hours. 2022 temperatures saw it drying within 2 hours. Hardly madness.
Having done my time as an R&D electrician, I don’t take chances with electrical safety if there is a safer way to handle it. Electricity can and does kill.

We've had the same double electric blanket from silent night for years. It goes in the washing machine often with the bedding. It also goes in the dryer on a lower heat. Still works fine. Recently got a newer one for son and do exactly the same and works a treat also

So if thats the case all these companies argos,asda etc etc are wrong to be selling electric blankets right now that are machine washable tried and tested? If they weren't machine washable then they couldn't sell them as such or they would have law suits and court cases against them, health and safety on there back etc....back in the days old electric ones were hand wash only but not these days. I would rather my machine spun out as much water as possible as soon as possible than soak it in a bath and let the wiring stay soaked etc for longer till it did dry regardless of how long that took

Cos so many people get killed by electric blankets these days 🤣

They are a cause of house fires. Is it worth the risk for exercising 10 minutes of care?

As I said for a little care - it takes all of 10 minutes extra over using a 30min quick cycle on a washing machine to ensure an expansive item lasts a lot longer and doesn’t cause a fire. An hour extra to dry over using your tumble dryer. It’s not onerous as you don’t stand over it and watch it dry!
manufacturers do cut corners on production and it’s not unknown for accidental damage to occur whilst following the instructions. Handwashing lessens that risk and ensures I have checked the blanket for any damage before reusing. I don’t get why you are all so upset about how I do something that takes 10 minutes longer than how you do it!!!!

They are a cause of house fires. Is it worth the risk for exercising 10 minutes of care?

It may not be. Out of interest (because I work in a field where occasionally I recommend these electric throws) how many house fires have been caused by electric blankets? Could you link to the statistics, please? Googling, I can only find a handful of reports over a number of years and, from the visual evidence offered, it looks as if the products involved were old-style electric underblankets. One of those displayed looks very much like an electric blanket I had in the 90s.

There's evidence that very cheap products may have safety issues, but from the Which? research I note that there are no reports of actual fires.

I think it helps to know the data so that people can assess the risk for themselves.

Sure - maybe the uk fire service records if 5000 a year will help.

www.fireservice.co.uk/safety/electric-blankets/

for the extra ten minutes I can use them to check the overall safety of my blanket - not a lot of time to spend once a year
doing one extra chore.

kindles now state they are waterproof - but would you want to purposely drop it in a bath, or wash it in a bowl of water? No because despite what the manufacturers state, sometimes there is a slightly safer way of doing things despite manufacturers instructions and claims.
The op asked for how others deal with cleaning a blanket. I answered as to how I did it. I’m soooooo glad I’m now living rent free in several peoples head - I wonder why that is?! As a mumsnet phrase says ‘you do you’ and I’ll do me as it doesn’t impact anyone else whatsoever.

And those statistic don’t include those who will have found a problem with their blanket, such as smouldering and managed to deal with it before it became a house fire. No everyone will be so lucky.

I agree with @Alphabet1spaghetti2 (I'm also an electrical engineer). You can wash these in a washing machine and they are sold as such, but it can and does weaken the small wire filaments in the blanket. From what I've read, you can probably get away with washing them 3-4 times in a machine before on average they suffer an issue and no longer work.

If you do wash in a washing machine, then use the delicates cycle and don't spin dry. Also, I know things are safer these days, but there are still electrical items out there which can and do go up in flames (just look at Amazon reviews).

@FenghuangHoyan thank you.

That's a commercial site — a company offering information and selling DVDs and books on ways of getting into the actual fire service. It doesn't cite the source for that figure of 5000 electric blanket fires each year. Can you supply the source data?

www.ddfire.gov.uk/electric-blanket-fire-safety-advice. Plenty of more fire services available you can contradict if you so wish.

just some of the advice offered. You can just as easily google the risks yourself in the time taken to troll me. I suggest you read some of the reports available from rics and home insurers sites. You may also wish to speak to actual electricians and small home appliance technicians. They will all say the same thing. It isn’t always best to blindly follow manufacturers instructions. But then you do strike me as being the sort of person who would jump off a cliff if instructions told you it was safe to do so, without undertaking any personal risk assessment of the situation.