We recently purchased a Novaform Gel mattress topper at Costco.  We live in northeast Ohio.  We keep our bedroom at 65 degrees at night.  Does anyone else find this topper to be extremely cold when you first get into bed?  It is cold for about an hour or so.  Then it warms up and seems to be comfortable for the rest of the night.  I got up the other night for about an hour and when I got back into bed it was cold all over again.  Even though my husband was still in bed, it still got cold.  Also, it has a chemical smell.  How long will that last.  We have had this for about a week with no diminishing yet.  I suppose if we were to keep it in the summer it would be nice to have a cool bed.  Has anyone had any experience of using a heated mattress pad?  Will it damage the foam?  We have a combo water bed and latex mattress made by USA Mattress.  It's construction is 2 inches of Talay latex, standard polyfoam and water tubes. 

I just purchased the same gel topper from costco last week and just put it on tonight.  Well, i put it on.... laid around on it for a bit...and then took it off, but theres alot that went on in between!

First, today was the first day i actually opened the box and took it out. i didn't realize it would have such a strong smell! so i let it lay on the floor next to my bed for a little bit while i wash my sheets and the sheet it came with( hoping that would help with the smell, which was dumb). anyways, i got tired of waiting so i heaved it onto my mattress BUT i kept that packaging fabric inbetween my mattress and the topper because i noticed the gel stuff coming out and i didnt want it making a mess all over my mattress.  so i put my fitted sheet over the whole concoction...aaand yes i did notice that it was a little colder than usual. my house is pretty cold but the topper made it feel a bit more chilly....maybe it's because of the gel??? i live in sacramento so it gets very hot here during the summer, so i hope cooling sensation will be of good advantage by that time.

anyways, i threw my fuzzy blanket over the bed, which i usually sleep on top of and then i have a second blanket to cover me.  Sleeping on top of the first blanket reaallyy helps out with the coldness! and it's a little added comfiness as well =). as i laid around on it a bit, i couldnt ignore the smell coming through the blanket. it wasnt giving me a headache or anything, but it is a pretty annoying smell.  so...by 3am i decided to take the topper off to let it air out overnight and it is now fully laid out in another room. Hopefully the stink goes away soon because i was really juiced to try it out tonight! =/

Oh and about the heated mattress pad, i woudn't use it with the memory foam topper....im not for sure but i think the memory foam might be a bit combustible...wouldn't want anything to catch fire. Double check though.

Hopefully the smell goes away by tomorrow and when i get to officially try it out, i will have a full report. goodnight!