On Wed, 30 Dec 2015 22:54:45 -0700, Don Y
wrote:

On 12/30/2015 10:25 PM, E. Robinson wrote:
I am not bothered by wool and I feel that it's warmer in bed with the
heavy blankets on the bottom but my girlfriend is itched by wool and she
feels the heavy blankets should go on top with the softer cotton furry
blankets on bottom with the thin light down blankets in the middle.

Who is right for the most warmth?

Heavy blankets on top?
Heavy blankets on bottom?

Comfort is determined by how well you trap air (and, to some
degree, moisture -- your body's evaporative cooling).

Assuming you don't have "supplemental heating" (electric
blanket/mattress pad, "another warm body", etc.), you stay warm
by keeping the heat that your body generates from slipping away
from you/it.

Most radiates "out the top" surface. So, anything that prevents
that air from continuing up towards the ceiling is keeping you
warm.

But, what you sleep *on* can also pull heat away from your body
or act to trap it, depending on the material. An unheated water
bed will leave you feeling cold regardless of the number of
blankets on top of you -- it's thermal mass sucks the heat out
of your body too effectively. OTOH, some mattress materials
trap a lot of heat and leave you sweating even with nothing
covering your body (depending on humidity levels, this can
leave you very cold from evaporative losses -- or, just "sticky").

[I think many of the early "memory foam" beds had this problem;
the mattress didn't "breathe" enough so the sleeping surface
just keeps getting warmer and warmer -- even if the other
side of your body is cold!]

I like a cool bed so tend to want something that wicks my body
heat away from me (but not too aggressively). E.g., I will
often fall asleep on the carpeted floor slab fully clothed
and be very comfortable -- despite the heat sinking ability of
the cement beneath me.

Why not just try *objectively* evaluating different configurations?
Of course, if one or both of you can't be objective in that
evaluation, then the "scientifically correct" answer will be
just as readily rejected -- due to "inconvenience"!
The only REAL answer there is twin beds.