Waterbed heater?

A dumb question - Has anyone ever tried a waterbed heater as a heat source for propagating? I have never seen or used a regular heating mat, but wondered if my old WB heater would work. It has a thermostatic heat control.

YES , BUT TO HARD TO CONTROL . START AT LOWEST TEMP AND GO UP .

yes a water bed heater will work a friend of mine used one last year ,it worked for her,just keep the setting low.
I even found out it will work as a heater for a incubater as will.

I knew of a guy on another forum who nearly burned down his garage using this method.

This comes up twice a year on one forum or another. The concensus eventually always seems to be, don't do it. SB

This message was edited Mar 13, 2006 3:05 PM

OOooh, thank you for the caution. Like the one about the guy digging his pond who blew himself up when he hit a gas line (moral: call BlueStake first).

wow thanks never though about that. will have to put it on something inflamable,but you know that person must have had it turned up full blast for it to get so hot to catch fire.
because when it was used as a water bed it never set fire to the bed.
mmmmm must keep it in mine though now that you had said that.

Well I am using a water bed heater in my coldframe and it is working magnificently! I laid it on bricks and put gallon milk bottles full of water on top.It heats the bricks and the water and therefore heats the ambient air.Only turn it on at night,becuse the water dissipates? the heat during the day.

will golgi what a good idea i was wondering yesterday what i could use for heat in my green house.
that is so kool thanks for coming up with it.

FWIW, the guy who nearly burned his garage is no rookie; I believe he runs a series of commercial greenhouses and has many years of experience. All I'm trying to say is that it apparently isn't that hard to have a mishap. SB

This message was edited Mar 15, 2006 7:33 AM

you are so right stressbaby,i hope what i said never upset you im glad you posted that warning,because i never though about it.once again
thank-you.
digging_dirt

I used a waterbed heater to heat the kiddie pool for my pet lizard. He kept breaking the aquarium heaters, so I tried a used waterbed heater. The mat must be covered - by a tarp or other evenly flat object, so the heat generated will be evenly distributed with no hot spots. I also placed reflective insulation underneath the heater, so the heat would be deflected upwards toward the pool. I used a thermometer in the pool to monitor the water temperature. I never had any problems, but I did put it on a circuit breaker plug for safety. A smoke detector is a must too. They say not to use them unless the waterbed is FILLED, but it worked fine for my purposes.
Julie