wet feeling when using electric coat, how to remedy?

[jon5500]

Been wearing an electric coat this year for the first time where I work. I'm inside, but temperatures never get beyond 50 degrees F this time of the year. I don't move around much and work mainly at the keyboard. This is the first time I've worn an electric coat, but may be the last time. I warm up quickly and well, but the longer I wear it, the more likely I am to end up with a "wet" feeling as if my entire upper torso was in a cold sweat, yet when I check the shirt or shirts underneath the coat and my skin, they are all dry. In fact, I'm still not yet even quite warmed up most of the time. Just wondered if anyone else ever encountered this and what was your solution? Thank you!

 

[Bluejets]

I'd consider that a medical issue rather than electrical/electronic.

 

[jon5500]

Further research on my part since this post seems to indicate that I have been wearing the wrong type of clothing that doesn't wick away sweat or moisture very well. I wear standard, department store poly/ fleece but the cheap kind and each coat has 40-60% cotton content. Apparently, the high amount of cotton retains the moisture. Unfortunately, this "fleece blend" also applies to the electric coat. I guess the solution would be buying a wool/ true fleece base shirt, then two other breathable layers to wick away sweat and retain heat but, unfortunately, this solution is well beyond my budget so I will have to go back to non-heated coat with some uncomfortable, but not unmanageable, intrusion from the cold.

 

[TCSC47]

Not quite the same thing but I have worn a pair of electrically heated gloves for skiing. Initially worked well but I quickly damaged them. When I pick up my skis, I have to grip across the sharp edges. For non skiers, there are strips of steel down the edges of the skis with the intended function of cutting into icy surfaces. I service my own skis so these edges are always very sharp. I didn't think of this until it was too late and I had sliced into the palms of my gloves which allowed in melted snow making the gloves completely unusable. You can NOT have wet hands when out in the cold! I was thinking of trying to flexibly glue some leather over the cuts but, like you are thinking of traditional clothing, I went back to ordinary leather / gortex gloves. I generate enough heat when skiing anyway.

The interesting thing is that your coat and my gloves were probably thought up by somebody who knew more about electrical stuff than about clothing materials and their use in the field.

Post script -- the gloves were on half price offer from Maplin's (the only high street chain of electronic component shops in the UK that I knew of) before they very sadly went belly up. This brought them down to a competitive price compared to normal gloves, but I have to admit still over priced for the quality of the gloves themselves. They worked very well on three AA NiCds that lasted throughout the first and only day I wore them.

 

[jon5500]

I've decided to abandon the electronic side of things and go with layered clothing. This week, I ordered a set of merino wool base top and bottoms and I have a down jacket on the way. It got quite cold this week and I nearly froze because I couldn't stand the feeling from the "wetness" of the coat. I even switched out my normal t-shirt underneath for a 100% synthetic shirt, but still couldn't get rid of the wet feeling. It didn't seem to matter whether I was careful with the wattage (so I wouldn't overheat prematurely) or not, still ended up clammy.

That being said, this weekend there is a break from the cold. It is 60 F indoors right now and I am back to my electric coat with a simple light denim jacket as cover. I can run the coat all day at 25 watts and I will never get the wet and clammy feel, so I truly don't understand what's going on. So, the electric coat will be retained for when temps indoors are in the upper 50's to 60's, but isn't going to work at the upper 40's to low 50's side of things. I'll be darned as to why. Someone mentioned a possible medical issue. I'm perfectly healthy other than the fact that the cold gives me more issues over the last five years than it used to, not only because of being 5 years older, but I also lost around 60 lbs over that time. Being thinner and cold don't mix well.

 

[shrtrnd]

Last post on this was a month ago, but I've got some input on this:
Have used electric blankets at night in the past and found the blanket material atop the electric blanket matters.
My experience is (I'm not expert on what materials are better than others for this), the outer covering, like your 'light denim jacket', matters. The outer material has to allow your body to 'breathe'. The humidity your body emits has to be able to escape confinement under your electric coat.
I found some blankets (I never bothered to identify the material they were made of), trapped the humidity from my body under the electric blanket, and I'd wake-up sweating. And other outer blanket material allowed 'breathing' that let the humidity of my body escape from the electric blanket underneath, and I'd wake up the next morning warm, but not wet from sweat.
Just some trivia I thought might be of interest here.

 

[jon5500]

Have pretty much solved the issue by using the down coat. I picked up one with the highest "fill power" I could afford. Depending on indoor temperature, I can either wear the coat over just a standard t-shirt or over the shirt and a fleece vest. If I'm still cold, then I will wear a long sleeved fleece shirt over the t. I don't experience any discomfort with this set up. So far, no sweating either.

I can still switch out to the electric coat but only if temperatures reach 55 F or higher. I don't seem to end up feeling "wet" then. I still don't know the reason for the feeling, so that remains a mystery. It could be that the electric coat elements don't provide even heating to my body, causing small areas of hot and cold spots right near each other giving me the feeling. Maybe when environmental temperatures increase and there is less temperature difference between the spots, it's not enough for me to get the wet feeling.

Yes, I have an electric blanket I use at home too. The blanket itself is fleece and I usually use a fleece blanket cover. What I set it at before bed depend on what I have eaten during the day as well as the house temperature. With the Covid crisis, sometimes food doesn't arrive here in time and I eat very little for several days, just some pasta for quick energy and that's about it. By night, the pasta benefit has often worn off. Then, even with the electric blanket on and set where I normally would set it, I still end up with chills during the night. At first, I thought my blanket was going bad because, say just the day before when I ate normally, the same setting just wouldn't do the job! Never realized how much of a difference food could make with overnight warmth! However, I now do have a down throw I can use over top of the electric blanket should I encounter chills again. Works great and I usually don't need to run the blanket after a warm up period, but the down retains the heat so well that I can't use it if I'm eating normally or I wake up in a sweat, which is something I absolutely hate! Fortunately, as I've been learning about my body and the temperature, this doesn't happen often.

A few years back, I tried only a down blanket scheme at home for overnight warmth. I used two layered blankets with as much fill power as I could afford. They ended up thick and I felt like I was sleeping within clouds! However, even if the house temp dropped into the mid to upper 40's, I would still wake up sweaty and that was with a fan aimed towards me running at middle speed! So that bed was abandoned and the comforters are still on it. I suppose if a crisis ever hit where temps dropped to outdoor temperatures, that set up could come in handy.

Oh well, this whole thing has been an interesting learning experience for sure.