By: Karlton G. Kemerait
Weighted Blanket Calculator
Finding The Best Weight For Your Weighted Blanket
Trying to imagine what weight you’ll like the best in your first weighted blanket can be a real challenge and the last thing you want to do is spend a lot of money on a weighted blanket only to find out when it arrives that it is either too heavy or too light for your comfort.
To help you avoid buying a blanket that doesn’t work for you, we have developed a weighted blanket calculator. The calculator is just a series of easy-to-follow steps using regular non-weighted blankets that you already have around the house.
Let's Get Started
There are a few household items that you’ll need to complete the steps.
- Pencil and Paper
- Small Calculator
- Bathroom Scale
- Tape measure or Yardstick
- Someone to help, adult or child to get blankets for you (optional)
The Steps To A Calming Weighted Blanket
OK, the first two steps are easy. You’ll need to weigh yourself on the bathroom scale and jot down your weight on the piece of paper. Next, lie down on your bed and one at a time have your helper put a blanket on you. Try to keep the blankets flat (not bunched up or doubled over). Keep adding blankets until the weight starts to feel soothing and comfortable. Once you get the right number of blankets, take a short nap under them just to be sure. If you find that the blankets feel a little light but adding another one makes it too heavy, remember it is better to err on the side of being a little too light than being too heavy.
Now, what we are going to do is weigh and then measure each blanket. Once we have those measurements, we will use our calculator to find the amount of pressure that each blanket provides. Here we go!
- Holding a blanket in your arms, stand on the bathroom scale and record the weight.
- Subtract your weight (obtained earlier) from the total in step 1p. This is the weight of the blanket.
- Make sure the blanket is laid out flat on the floor, then measure the length and width in inches.
- Multiply the length by the width. This is the area in square inches.
- Divide the number from the previous step by 144. This is the area in square feet.
- Divide the weight of the blanket (from step 2) by the area in square feet (step 5). This is the pressure in lbs./ft2.
Repeat for each blanket
Lastly, add together the pressures from each of the blankets. You should get a number somewhere between 0.3 and 0.85 (if not…double-check the math). This should be the ideal pressure for your first weighted blanket.
Using The Pressure
Now that you have your ideal pressure, how do you use it? You may find that a lot of vendors don’t know what to do when you tell them you’d like a weighted blanket with such and such a pressure. Fortunately, having the pressure means we can now calculate the correct weight for any size blanket that we’d like.
Let’s say you know that your ideal pressure is 0.57 lbs./ft2 and you’d like to buy a king-sized blanket that measures 76 x 80 inches. We simple use the formula that we used when finding our ideal pressure, but in the final step instead of dividing the blanket’s weight by the area, this time we multiply the area by the pressure to get pounds. Like this…
76 x 80 = 6080 square inches
6080 / 144 = 42.22 square feet
42.22 x 0.57 = 24 pounds!
So we know that if we want a blanket this size and our ideal pressure is 0.57 lbs./ft2 then the weight needs to be 24 pounds. But what if we want to buy a small lap pad for the sofa but we want it to feel like its the same weight? Simple…
24 x 48 = 1152 square inches
1152 / 144 = 8 square feet
8 x 0.57 = 4.6 pounds!
Abbreviated Versions of The Formulas
- Getting Weight From Pressure:
Length x Width / 144 = Area
Area x Pressure = Weight - Getting Pressure From Weight):
Length x Width / 144 = Area
Weight / Area = Pressure
A Quick Example of Some Calculations
Blanket #1: (42×60 inches, 3 pounds)
42 x 60 = 2520 square inches
2520 / 144 = 17.5 square feet
3 pounds / 17.5 = pressure of 0.17
Blanket #2: (50×75 inches, 6 pounds)
50 x 75 = 3750 square inches
3750 / 144 = 26.04 square feet
6 pounds / 26.04 = pressure of 0.25
Blanket #3: (60×80 inches, 5 pounds)
60 x 80 = 4800 square inches
4800 / 144 = 33.33 square feet
5 pounds / 33.33 = pressure of 0.15
Adding their pressures together we get 0.17 + 0.25 + 0.15 = 0.57 lbs./ft2, our ideal blanket’s pressure!
