Last Friday night, my boyfriend let his cat into our bedroom. She decided around 4 a.m. that she wanted to run around the house, like cats do, and as near as I can figure, tried to climb off the bed and dug in with her claws when she felt herself sliding. As you may have guessed from the thread title, we have an airbed (this kind, to be specific). The next thing that happened was a loud “POPhissssssssssssssssssssssss” and the bed started sinking. The cat was unceremoniously thrown out of the room and we went back to sleep because it was, after all, four in the morning.
At eight we got up and realized that we couldn’t find the patches for the bed. They’re clear patches that came conveniently packaged in a small clear plastic bag which has decided to hide itself somewhere. So we went to the store and got some bike patches to put over the holes. We patched the holes and reinflated the bed. Now it’s not holding air like it used to. Big surprise, no?
I have to reinflate the bed every night and it’s significantly softer in the morning. I’ve crawled all around the bed listening and feeling for any other holes, but other than the two that we patched I haven’t found any. Could the bed be losing air through the patches? And is there any way to patch it so that it’ll quit losing air? I can live with it like this, but I’d really rather not if I don’t have to.
I don’t think those Scab bike patches will work for you. They have never worked for me on actual bike tires, perhaps because of getting dried out in my bag before using. I do well with regular bike patches that involve glue from a tube. I rough up the surface and clean it with acetone. Then I cover the area with a coat of glue, let it dry 10" and coat it again. After that dries I add the patch. I neglected to add that I have the tire secured to a fixture made of hard wood. At this point I use a screen edge roller to “stitch” the patch working from the center out. The screen edge roller is like a narrow wheel on a handle used for inserting the binding on window screens. After all this I let the patch dry for at least a day.
The above would certainly work better than those patches you used. However, if the mattress is made of vinyl, you may need a patch kit more specific to that than for rubber.
For a while at work we used a warm-water blanket as a warmer for animals during surgery. Somehow, even though it was only sedated patients coming near the thing, it would regularly get punctured and water would leak all over the table. I’m the “equipment fixer” around here - whenever there’s a problem with medical equipment, I either fix it or find someone who can.
My fix for punctures was a combination of super-glue and really sticky duct tape or electrical tape. If your hole is bigger than a puncture, it might not work, but I would just put a glob of super-glue (well, technically surgical skin glue, but basically same stuff just sterile) over the hole, let it cure for a few hours to overnight, and then place a piece of really sticky vinyl tape over it - partly because it just seemed like a good idea, and partly to mark the repair spot. It worked for over a year, and then we bought a different kind of warmer.
We’ve been using an airbed for awhile, and even though we don’t have a cat we’ve had a few leaks.
This is what the husband came up with for small holes, and so far it’s been working:
Get some silicone in a tube, we’ve been using RTV silicone adhesive sealant
Get some thin cloth (we’ve been using bits of underwear too worn to wear anymore that have landed in the “rag bag”. Obviously, use clean cloth). I recommend cotton or stretchy fabric.
Inflate the bed to a little less that what you usually sleep on.
Squish a little of the silicone into the hole so it will act as a plug from the interior to the exterior.
Smear silicone on a palm-size piece of the cloth. Basically, soak the cloth in silicone.
Apply cloth/silicone patch over the hole and smooth it down.
Let dry/cure
Reinflate bed to usual pressure and enjoy!
So far, we have not had any of these patches give out. I will emphasize that we’ve used this on small holes, but from what I remember from owning cats, this should probably take care of holes made by claws.
To find the pin hole, take the bed outside, fill it up, and hose it down. Apply weight to the mattress with your body and any other heavy objects and start soaping it down with dish washing detergent. If your mattress has a fuzzy outer lining, you’ll have to work the soap in a bit. Look for bubbles and listen carefully for hissing.
Once you find the hole, mark it somehow. This is easier said than done since the fabric is wet and nothing will stick. I actually push a small nail through the hole. Of course this make it bigger, but that’s really not a problem.
Once the mattress is thoroughly dried, use something like Broomstick’s technique making sure to get the adhesive **inside **the hole.
I was in Walmart the other night so I took a quick look as I walked through the camping section. Right next to the seam sealer was a little bottle of vinyl patch for $1.88. It would work great for pinholes but not large holes or tears.
Actually, in our experience with an airbed similar to the one linked to, you don’t always need to soap up the mattress. Inflate it, then listen for a hiss, or run your hand over the airbed - often you can feel the breeze from even a pinhole.
Some of us don’t have $100.
I find the you really need the cloth patch to give some strength to the repair. And the little vinyl patches you usually get just aren’t large enough to have enough “grip”. Hence, we make our own out of cloth.
For larger holes, we did one repair using upholstery thread smeared with the silicone sealant, then stitching the hole closed, followed by the patch technique above. We haven’t test it extensively, however.