BACKPACK BED EXPERIMENT: How warm is a backpack bed (that we distribute to the homeless) on a typical cold night in November? We wanted to find out. This last Friday night, the temperature was 30F. I was the test subject ... wearing a shirt and 2 long-sleeve pullovers. I put the backpack bed out onto the concrete slab behind the house and crawled in. Wrapped a Mylar blanket around myself, followed by a fleece throw (both of which we try to include with each backpack bed). Zipped up. I was outside for one hour. How did it go? The concrete was 36.8F (see pics). After an hour, I measured the surface temp of the mattress inside the bed that I was not directly in contact with (59.5F), plus the mattress right under me (76.5F). Almost 40 degrees warmer underneath me than the concrete itself. My hands were even ok inside without gloves (strange, but a nice surprise). Why did it seem to work? The backpack beds not only are waterproof & windproof, but also have a special insulating layer on the bottom of the mattress pad (see pics) that helps a) keep the cold underneath from rising up; and b) helps retain body heat. Also, the foil Mylar blankets (first developed by NASA in 1964 for the US space program) helped in retaining additional body heat. The combo of these two ... packed a nice (warm) punch. Next experiment ... give it a go when the temp hits around 0F. To learn more about these amazing backpack beds, checkout backpackbed.org
Posted on: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 01:17:04 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015