Recently I bought an air mattress with a built-in electric air pump. I use it daily, and I planned to use it for the next two or three years while saving up enough to be a really good mattress and box springs. (I hate debt.) About three weeks after buying the mattress, I accidentally punctured it, but a vinyl repair kit seemed to fix the problem just fine.
Now the #%&*@! thing has some kind of slow, steady leak. If I inflate it fully, in less than two hours it will be completely deflated again. This is without any weight on it at all. I’ve inspected the thing carefully three times and can’t find any sign of a leak. I even submerged the partially filled mattress in a bathtub full of water and found no sound of a leak. (Ya got any idea what a hassle that is??!?)
Now, here’s the weird part.
If I inflate the mattress just before I go to bed and immediately get under the sheets, the mattress lose almost no air until I get up in the morning. If I spend more than a few minutes after getting off the mattress, it starts noticeably losing air quickly.
I’m at a complete loss to understand this. My only guess is that the problem lies in the inflate/deflate valve the electric pump uses, and my added weight somehow seals the valve better.
Is there anybody out there with some experience with air mattresses who can give me some advice? Otherwise I’m gonna hafta go back to sleeping in a sleeping bag on top of a pile of quilts.
See if you can get it exchanged. My friend lived on an air mattress for years and would regularly get leaks. Every time she would just take it back and they would exchange it. Not sure how long the warranty was for, but she never had problems exchanging.
I can imagine a situation where there’s a pinhole on the bottom that effectively seals up when your weight on the mattress forces the supposed pinhole against the floor. Is this on carpet or a hard surface?
I got a couple of comments here, as a tire tech I chased and fixed lots of leaks.
First, soapy water in a spray bottle is more effective than a water bath in some cases. Soap makes bigger longer lasting bubbles.
I’ve seen tires only leak above a certain pressure, but I’ve also seen the opposite, only leaking below a certain pressure.
I’ve seen tires that only leak when moving or only when parked.
I’ve seen tires leak only when parked on the hole/nail/leak and I’ve seen people trying to track a slow leak get screwed up because parking on the leak made it faster ,slower, start ,stop etc.
I guess my point is don’t think it will make sense. Check everything in as many ways/situations as is worth your time. Many leak repairs end with a face palm:smack:
I have no idea why it doesn’t deflate while you’re lying on it but these mattresses can leak from a puncture as you experienced and also from a faulty pump that can allow air to escape. In order to find the source of the leak, you will need to narrow things down a bit.
Usually, these mattresses come with a plug to seal the air supply line from the pump. To test if the pump is faulty, the supply tube from the pump is disconnected from the mattress after it is fully inflated. Plug the inlet on the mattress and see if it deflates. If not, the pump is faulty. Obviously, if it does the mattress has a leak.
I had the same problem many years ago with an old-fashioned air mattress that had a built-in foot pump. We finally figured out that the air valve had a rubber flap that allowed air in, but would seal against pressure from within to keep the air inside. The problem was that the rubber flap had enough “spring” to it that it would not seal unless there was quite a bit of pressure on the air mattress. When I was on the mattress, lots of pressure on the flap and it would seal. When I would get off, the flap would not seal firmly and air would slowly leak out.
This may or may not be similar to your case, My solution was to inflate the air mattress to be VERY firm, when it would hold air. Then I would have to let a little out when I used it. Frustrating, but it worked.
I was sleeping right on top of the leak! I guess it was a lot smaller when I searched for leaks the first couple of times and gradually got bigger with all the deflating and inflating. This afternoon I couldn’t get it to inflate at all, and when I stripped off the bed sheets to take a look, I saw a three inch gash on top of the mattress right away. I’ve patched it, but I’ll buy a standard mattress as soon as I can scare up a few hundred bucks. Then this thing goes to the county landfill.
I use air mattresses, I’m lying on one right now. Their big downside is, they don’t last longer than 3-4 months. Their virtue is, they are inexpensive to replace. I live in a country with rock-hard mattresses, so this is kind of a necessity for me.
I had a couple of years on a “health mattress.” You could play pool on one of those. The worst time was after being in transit for 24 hours from the Midwest to a western Pacific island. We go into our new apartment and, completely exhausted, both sat on the end of the bed. We found the energy to immediately spring up and check that we had actually found the bed and not a table. Ugh.
According to my mom, even Sleep Number beds have problems with leaks, and they don’t seem to be so generous about returns.
Here’s a question for all of you that have spent more than a few nights on an air mattress.
We have one that we usually use for when we have more grandkids sleeping over than we have beds. We have the problem of it being REALLY cold. The top is has a flocked type material on it - kind of like a velvet or fake suede. I put down a heavy blanket on top of that and then a polar fleece bottom sheet. But it’s like the cold just seeps up through all of the layers and chills you to the bone. How do you prevent that?
IME, the problem with air mattresses is that they aren’t elevated on a platform/box spring like normal mattresses. It seems like there are always cold drafts down at the floor.
You can buy a memory foam mattress online. From experience (I sleep on one daily), I personally think they feel amazing. Some people dislike em, but most don’t, and in any case they are vastly better than any air mattress.
A queen size will be under $300 on sale. I personally only paid $170 for my full size one, on a W00t sale.
You can just stick one on the floor, or use a plywood platform. Memory foam mattresses don’t need box-springs or even really benefit from a boxspring.
