How Much Does an Electric Blanket Cost to Run? UK 2026

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An electric blanket costs about 2.6p an hour to run in 2026, and a whole winter of sensible use costs less than a single tank of petrol. That is not a rounding difference against central heating, it is a different order of magnitude: heating one person in a bed costs roughly a thirtieth of what it costs to heat the house around them.

The catch is that almost every figure you will find for this online is either out of date, quoted from a retailer selling blankets, or based on a nameplate wattage the blanket only draws for the first twenty minutes. This guide uses the current Ofgem price cap electricity rate of 26.32p per kWh for 1 October to 31 December 2026, shows the arithmetic, and separates the nameplate figure from what your blanket actually pulls overnight.

How much does an electric blanket cost to run per hour?

The sum is the same one that governs every appliance in the house:

Power in kilowatts × hours run × unit rate in pence = cost

Electric blankets are low-wattage devices. They are heating the few centimetres of air between you and the mattress rather than a room's worth of air, so they need very little power to do it. Here is the cost per hour by type, at the nameplate power draw:

Two things follow from that table. The first is that the spread between the cheapest and the most expensive electric blanket is under 3p an hour, so choosing between them on running cost alone is not worth the effort. The second is the comparison that actually matters: a 2kW fan heater costs 52.6p an hour, which is twenty times a double underblanket. Even a mid-size dehumidifier at about 5p an hour costs nearly twice as much to run.

Note that overblankets and heated throws draw a little more than underblankets of the same size. They sit on top of you rather than underneath, so more of the heat escapes upwards and the element has to work harder to keep the surface at temperature.

Is the "1p an hour" claim true?

You will see this on packaging, in Amazon listings and in half the articles on the subject. It is worth testing properly, because it is the single most searched-for claim about electric blankets and it is repeated far more often than it is checked.

At 26.32p per kWh, 1p an hour buys you 38 watts. So the claim is true for any blanket drawing 38W or less.

No mains electric blanket sold in the UK has a nameplate rating that low. But nameplate is the wrong number, because a blanket only draws full power while it is heating up. Once the surface reaches temperature, the thermostat starts cutting the element in and out, and on the lowest setting the average draw typically falls to somewhere between a third and a half of nameplate.

That puts the real numbers roughly here:

• A 60W single blanket on its low setting averages around 20-30W, or 0.5p to 0.8p an hour
• A 100W double on its low setting averages around 35-50W, or 0.9p to 1.3p an hour
• The same 100W double on full power costs the advertised 2.6p an hour

So the honest verdict: the 1p-an-hour claim is broadly true for a blanket on its lowest setting, and roughly two to three times optimistic for one running on full power. Nobody is being seriously misled, which is unusual for an energy marketing claim. The reason it holds up is that the preheat phase where the blanket draws full power is short, and most people do the bulk of their usage on a low setting.

If you want your own number rather than ours, a plug-in energy monitor costs around £15, sits between the plug and the socket, and will tell you exactly what your blanket used last night. On an appliance with a duty cycle this variable, measuring beats estimating.

What an electric blanket costs per night and per winter

Per-hour figures are only useful once you know how long the thing is actually on. There are three realistic patterns, and the gap between them is larger than the gap between any two blankets.

Taking a 100W double underblanket, and treating preheat as 30 minutes at full power:

The headline is that even the most wasteful way of running an electric blanket costs about £25 across an entire winter. The sensible way costs under £12. For context, that is roughly what a tumble dryer costs in ten loads.

Most manufacturers recommend the preheat-then-off pattern, and it is genuinely the best of both worlds: a warm bed when you get into it, and a bed that then cools slowly under the duvet as your own body heat takes over. Many blankets now have a timer that does this automatically. If yours does not, a plug-in timer socket costs a few pounds and achieves the same thing, though check your blanket's instructions first — a few models want to be switched off at their own control rather than at the socket.

Electric blanket vs putting the heating on

This is the comparison that decides whether a blanket is worth owning, and it is the one the retailer blogs tend to skip.

Running your gas central heating for an hour to warm a bedroom means firing a boiler that heats the whole house. A modest boiler modulating down to around 10kW of gas input costs roughly 80p an hour at the current 7.97p gas cap rate, and most of that heat goes into rooms nobody is in at 11pm.

An electric blanket is about thirty times cheaper per hour than central heating, because it is solving a much smaller problem. That ratio is the entire argument for owning one.

The important caveat is that these are not substitutes. An electric blanket keeps a person warm; it does nothing for the temperature of the room, and a cold bedroom with damp air is a condensation and mould risk regardless of how warm the bed is. The right way to think about a blanket is as something that lets you heat the house a bit less, not something that lets you stop heating it.

Can an electric blanket let you turn the thermostat down?

This is where the real money is, and it dwarfs the running cost of the blanket itself.

Turning your heating thermostat down by 1°C saves a typical UK household roughly £90 a year. Running an electric blanket every night for the whole winter costs around £12. If having a warm bed is what makes 18°C tolerable where 19°C was needed before, the blanket pays for itself several times over in its first season — and that is before you count the fact that a good blanket costs £30 to £60 to buy once and lasts a decade.

The same logic applies to the evening. If a heated throw on the sofa at 3.2p an hour means the heating goes on an hour later, you have spent 3p to save something like 80p.

Two things make this work better in practice. The first is a smart thermostat with a schedule, so the setback actually happens rather than depending on someone remembering. The second is draught proofing — a bedroom with a draughty sash window feels several degrees colder than its air temperature, and no amount of blanket fixes the cold spot by the window. To see what a tariff change is worth alongside all of this, our smart meter savings calculator puts the numbers against your own bill.

Underblanket, overblanket or heated throw?

All three cost roughly the same to run, so choose on how you want to use them.

Underblankets sit between the mattress and the sheet. They are the most efficient of the three because your body and the duvet trap the heat above them, and they are the cheapest to buy. The downside is that they warm the bed rather than you — once you are in and the duvet is doing its job, an underblanket has little left to contribute, which is why the preheat-then-off pattern suits them so well.

Overblankets lie on top of you under the duvet. They keep working all night in a way an underblanket does not, which is genuinely useful if you have poor circulation or a cold bedroom, but they cost more to buy and slightly more to run.

Heated throws are the flexible option: use them on the sofa in the evening and on the bed later. They are the only one of the three that meaningfully displaces evening heating, which is where the bigger saving sits, and that makes them the best buy for most households despite being marginally the most expensive per hour.

A dual-control double is worth the small premium if two people share the bed and disagree about temperature, which is most people. Electric underblankets with separate controls typically cost £10 to £20 more than single-control versions.

Electric blanket safety: the ten-year rule

Running cost is the easy part of this decision. Safety is the part worth actually paying attention to, because electric blankets are one of the few household appliances that combine heat, an electrical element and a flammable environment, and because a great many of the ones in use in the UK are far too old.

The core guidance:

• Replace an electric blanket roughly every ten years. The elements and the wiring degrade with repeated folding and washing long before the blanket stops working. Age is the single biggest risk factor.
• Check it every autumn before you use it. Look for scorch marks, discoloured patches, fraying fabric, exposed elements, damaged flex and a control unit that has cracked or discoloured. Any of those means the blanket is finished.
• Never use it if it is damp, and never switch it on to dry it out.
• Never use it alongside a hot water bottle. A leak and a live element are a bad combination.
• Do not use an underblanket as an overblanket or vice versa. They are designed for different amounts of heat dissipation.
• Store it rolled, not folded. Sharp creases break the element wires, and a broken wire is where a hot spot starts.
• Buy one with the BEAB mark and check it meets BS EN 60335. Very cheap unbranded blankets from marketplace sellers are the one category here genuinely worth avoiding.

Many UK fire services run free electric blanket testing sessions in autumn. If yours is more than a few years old and you are not sure about it, that is the cheapest safety check available.

If you have reduced sensation in your legs or feet — a common effect of diabetes — take particular care with heat settings, and take medical advice before using an electric blanket overnight.

Six ways to run an electric blanket for even less

1. Preheat, then switch it off. This is the big one. It cuts the cost by about 85% against leaving it on low all night, and most people sleep better in a bed that cools gradually anyway.

2. Use the lowest setting that works. The difference between setting 1 and setting 3 is roughly the difference between 1p and 2.6p an hour. It is not much money, but it is free to take.

3. Put it on a timer. Either the blanket's own or a cheap plug-in timer. Removing the need to remember is what makes the saving stick.

4. Warm the bed, not the room. If the blanket is doing its job, the bedroom thermostat or TRV can come down. The Energy Saving Trust's own advice is that bedrooms are the easiest room in the house to run cooler.

5. Pair it with a decent duvet. A 13.5 tog duvet holds the blanket's heat in; a 4.5 tog summer duvet lets it straight out and the blanket runs longer to compensate.

6. Deal with the draughts first. A cold bedroom is usually a draughty bedroom. Our draught proofing guide covers the £20 of materials that fixes most of it, and unlike the blanket it works on the room as well as the bed.

Frequently asked questions

How much does an electric blanket cost to run per hour in the UK? A double underblanket rated at 100W costs 2.6p an hour at the October 2026 price cap rate of 26.32p per kWh. A 60W single costs 1.6p an hour and a 160W heated throw costs 4.2p. On a low setting the thermostat cuts the element in and out, so the real average is often closer to 1p an hour.

Do electric blankets use a lot of electricity? No. An electric blanket is one of the lowest-consumption appliances in a typical home. A 100W blanket run for eight hours uses 0.8 kWh, which is less than a single cycle of a tumble dryer and less than a third of what an oil-filled radiator uses in one hour.

Is it cheaper to run an electric blanket or the heating? An electric blanket, by a very wide margin. A blanket costs about 2.6p an hour against roughly 80p an hour for gas central heating warming the whole house. The two are not doing the same job, but if the goal is to be warm in bed, the blanket is around thirty times cheaper.

How much does it cost to leave an electric blanket on all night? About 21p a night on full power, or roughly 10p if it runs on a low setting after a preheat. Across a 120-night winter that is £25 and £12 respectively. Check your blanket's instructions first — some are rated for all-night use and some are not.

Are electric blankets expensive to run in 2026? No, and less so than most people assume. Even at the higher October 2026 price cap rate, a whole winter of nightly use costs about the same as two takeaway coffees a month.

How long do electric blankets last? Around ten years is the standard guidance, and it is a genuine safety limit rather than a sales tactic. Inspect it every autumn and replace it if you find scorch marks, fraying, exposed elements or a damaged flex.

Can you wash an electric blanket? Most modern ones are machine washable on a gentle cycle once the control unit is detached, but check the label — some are not, and washing a non-washable blanket will ruin the element. Never tumble dry one, and never use it until it is completely dry.

The bottom line

An electric blanket is one of the few energy products where the marketing claim and the arithmetic broadly agree. At 2.6p an hour on full power and closer to 1p on a low setting, a whole winter of nightly use costs somewhere between £12 and £25 — and if it lets you hold the thermostat 1°C lower, it returns roughly £90 a year against that.

Buy one with a dual control if you share a bed, use the preheat-and-off pattern rather than leaving it on, check its age before you plug it in this autumn, and treat the ten-year replacement rule as a hard limit rather than a suggestion.