Sun Touch heating mat

Here is my newest idea & my test of the product so far. Below is the Sun Touch tile floor heating mat approx. 6 ft x 30 inches. The specs for this size say it will use about 180 watts,  put out about 540 btu, well I measured about 162 watts maybe or 1.35 amps.  Just like everything else, you only seam to get about 90% of what you pay for. 

My Idea was to install this under my mattress and it would be a nice slow heating system where none of the heat would get lost. Just to make sure it works - I wired the mat directly into a plug & plugged it into the wall outlet or extension cord. Since I have misplaced the stupid $150 thermostat I decided to just install this on a regular switch or a timer with 30, 60 or 240 minutes, works just as well and is  much cheaper.

On my first try I put the mat over a tarp which was laying on carpet and put my sleeping mat on top, after 15 minutes it was barely warm - so the heat was going in all directions. Maybe it was 80-90 degrees if I was lucky. On my second try I put a 1/2" foam board under the mat and this time I could feel the heat was coming all straight up at me, when I inserted my hand I would guess it was about 120+ deg right where the foam was. I would guess that if you want your tile floor hot in the morning you had better get up about 1 hour early, this thing does not work fast. 

My idea when installing this mat under my bed is to cut a 1/2" plywood board 30" x 72" and install the mat under some tiles on this board. Then it will then be laid over 1/2 - 3/4" foam board & the mattress will be put on top of the tiles, this way the heating unit can be removed in the summer time when not needed and save maybe 80 lbs in weight.

Testing the mat with a regular plug.

Ops wrong spec sheet, for this mat it says 180 watts

but only uses 165 when tested.

When laid over a foam board the mat got quite hot.

Follow up electric heating is working great.....   

I roller out the 30" x 60" tile floor wire heating matt directly under the mattress onto the plywood and it does take
about 1.5 to 2 hours - but then the temp got up to 112 deg   at a nice steady 160 watts
with a 12" mattress it keeps it just perfect.

I will next try put the whole thing on a dimmer switch & see if I can find the magic 85- 90 deg set point.
that is much cheaper then the $130 fancy controller. I just put the outdoor remote probe under the mattress - cost $25 for both 
Why heat the whole trailer when you can just heat your sleeping compartment ?

Tonight I will try my experiment with the hot water heating hopefully & report back results.