Air Mattress Changing into Weird Shapes

That's what I'm thinking too now, surely there's something inside the mattress to contain air and keep shape. But any way to confirm the rupture without tearing it open? Thing costs nearly 50.00$ and I'm frustrated it should be so short lived.

Maybe its an invisible cat that's right!

That's what you get for buying something made in china!!

I wouldn't go so far as to generalize bad outcomes from Chinese made products. For a start even the Iphone is manufactured in China. Look it up. Designed in USA, made in China. Everyone loves the damn thing to death. People are just unhappy with China because they're taking jobs. That's not a quality issue. Sure, China has had a string of bad products. I can bring up a list of equally bad engineered stuff made in USA. Ever read the book "When Technology Fails"? You need it on your bookshelf.

and Iphones are garbage..

Hi Ron,

Are a bachelor ? these mattresses are meant for 2 persons so that they can remain balanced.

I've seen this before. You buy that particular model, inflate it, toss on linens, blankets, whatnot, climb in and go to sleep, serene in the assurance your money was well-spent.

3:14 AM and you're suddenly hurled against the far wall like a rag doll and slump to the floor in a crumpled heap. In the dim glow of the streetlight outside you see It rise up upon its virgin-vinyl hind quarters, sprouting limbs and an enormous impossibly large befanged maw. Then it roars, but only you hear it. It lunges straight at you - your only salvation that razor-sharp machete you keep by the bed just in case last week's Blue Meanies return, as promised.

Or have they, but tonight in an even more hideous guise? You swing. Miss! Swing. Miss again! In spite of its size, it is extraordinarily agile but, even so, it doesn't see that you are slowly, methodically backing it into a corner and, just as you raise that glittering blade one last time you wake up, throw on some clothes and hustle your now-deflated monstrosity back to Wally World.

Just as you were beginning to believe it was all just a Bad Dream you enter the store and see them all looking at you vacuously, through sunken, glassy eyes that have beheld unspeakable horrors and they nod, knowingly.

You, too?

"I would guess it has internal baffles/walls/webs to keep it in shape, and that they have ruptured." Usually, the webs are simply folded to form a sort of flange, and those flanges are glued to the top and bottom surfaces (inside). The "glue" may be an actual adhesive, or part of the coating (used on older models based upon woven fabrics, with the flanges sewn into position), or the two parts joined by heat-welding them - the usual method today, I think. If the joint begins to fail, it almost always propagates until the section is completely free from one surface. Picking the mattress up and shaking it may give a flapping sound to confirm the now-loose web / wall. Likely, you can see on either top or bottom that the row of dimples or shallow depressed lines that used to be there are absent from the failed spot when it's inflated.

If you can't get it replaced, or your money returned, by the seller, in theory you might be able to repair it to some extent. Use a long needle and heavy thread to "tuft" the mattress with it at very low pressure. See http://www.fabricfarms.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=UP72&Category_Code=Tools&Store_Code=FFI for an example of the tool. Afterward, inject each penetration with an adhesive which will bond to the mattress fabric and fill the fibers of the cord. If you mark the cord at a point perhaps an inch (25mm) less than the average thickness of your mattress, that would identify the tie-off position for each exiting cord. This will give dimples or ditches roughly half an inch deep at each tufted spot; if the originals are significantly shallower or deeper, adjust length to match. You may also need to provide something better than a simple knot to terminate the cord. Sewing several times through the perimeter in line with the intended repair area, then going a couple of inches before the first tuft, would let you glue the cord to the exterior between adjacent penetrations, and you'd zig-zag all the way along to the far end before tying off again in the non-pressurized perimeter material. Both ends of each through-cord could still be knotted, but the adhesive would greatly stabilize the construction.

Oh, no! Not another air-bed metamorphosis. Does it seem like it is slowly encapsulating you?

It may be a genetic variant of The Blob, so, beware. Beware!

Hell yeah. Thats the freakiest part. The last time it happened, I thought of the movie Paranormal Activity and jumped up awake.

I bought (2) Coleman's each leak after a few weeks, I purchased one from Walmart probally a mainstays and it seems to be good, that was about 5 years ago, very happy with it.

But this guy didn't have as good as luck with his air mattress

p911

I remember reading somewhere (maybe The Times) that an individual's air mattress exploding caused a section of his roof to collapse and start a fire on top of that. Funny but scary.

In my case, if it is indeed a ruptured baffle (a torn liner?) to cause the the air tube in the mattress to balloon out to one side, I wonder what caused the rupture. I certainly don't recall over-pressurizing the mattress with air. I'm the only one who uses it and have been very careful with the pump.

remember 2 psi of air in the mattress X surface area oh lets say 72 x 80 x 8 deep and your laying on a container of 27,900 ponds of potential energy.

And 2 psi i think is asking for it.

That's a good perspective. Now to only calculate how high I will fly on burst. Does mattress come with an ejection feature?

I happen to design pumps for air beds and the maximum pressure is typically around 0.5 psi. The pumps are usually blowers that will stall out around that pressure.

ok then.....6,975 pounds.....hows that.

Air mattresses of this type are not typically intended for daily use.Most people would buy this thing and use it a few times over the year for guests or on camping outings.It sounds as if you have given yours several years of expected use in a very short time.

I am sure that you have not abused it,used it as a sled,flotation device,etc... But have just used it past it's expected number of uses in a lifetime.

The product sheet clearly mentions that the item is to be used as a bed only, (which I have done and nothing more). Not a word is mentioned about its expected lifetime or whether it should only be used for such and such short term applications. I think the manufacturer hasn't been clear on that and someone could take them to task for it, if the product fails in 5 months, consisting of on ave. 6 hours of use every day. Thats only 900 hours of total use. It'd be darn good to know whether that's the round about expected limit for something that costs over 50 dollars. Keep in mind the mattress also lays over a clean carpeted floor, not a pin mine. :)

Standard heavy gauge vinyl air mattress, probably with the topside flocking. Internal ribs/tubes/baffles that keep it flat have failed. I agree with #8, you have used a temporary guest bed as primary bedding. Given the low $50 price and the source, it is surprising it has lasted this long. Without special vinyl heat sealing tools and adhesive, repair will probably be far more work than it is worth and may not last any longer than the original. I have the queen size version of this Walmart special which has survived 5 years of "guest" use. It would have been worth $50 for my application, but I lucked out and found one on clearance for $20.

Suggest you invest 2x-4x in a standard mattress or research the >10x cost of the "real?" inflatable Select Comfort system (No endorsement intended). I prefer a firm box-spring mattress and my $199 investment is still comfortable after 21 years. In general, you do get what you pay for. Wish you better luck on your next bedding purchase.

Further evidence to support my theory that plastic from China is evil and they are hoping to kill us all with its toxins so they can come steal our toys!

The Master has moved to phase 2 of testing for his evil method for eliminating humankind.

Fear not, there will be a wooshing sound, and a distracted man in a long coat introducing himself only as "Doctor" will save you.

Buy a Sevylor air mattress from Cabelas. Made of rubber.

If you still have your receipt maybe Wal-Mart would exchange it. It sounds like it is defective to me and you haven't had it a year, right?

Did the bulge occur on the side toward the heater? If so, the heat, while not excessive, may have caused that side of the mattress to soften enough to stretch. The thinner it gets, the weaker it is, hence more stretching occurs. (That's why it is much harder to start blowing up a balloon than to add air once it's started.)

While I have not tried the Sevylor air mattresses, I can attest to Sevylor rubber boats (actually canvas vinyl). I have had one for 13 years that I bought used. It has seen hard use with my 3 kids and several others, over rocks and sticks, fishing trips, etc. I have fixed numerous punctures with some stuff called VLP (Vinyl Liquid Patch). The stuff seals well, is stronger than the original fabric, is easy to use, and lasts forever. The rubber boat just keeps going. If their air mattresses work as well, then they should last many years.

Well the heater is about 2 foot away from the rear portion of the bed, so its not even against the sides. The bulge occurred at the right side, so definitely seems a liner/baffle ruptured there.

The bright side about this whole affair is that I think I now have a couch

sew a special and sturdy bedsheet or enclosure for it, made of strong fabric (perhaps denim or even nylon netting material), just a bit smaller than its full-blown dimensions, stuff in the deflated bed, and inflate.

voila! your bed is back in form.

What will prevent top & bottom of "special enclosure" from bulging just like mattress? The mattress HAD internal pieces in tension to prevent this, but your fabric bag will not. Experiment: put a cloth bag around a toy balloon, inflate, and see what happens! Lots of stuff sold in netting bags (here in USA, and probably there, too) so easy to do.

"Experiment: put a cloth bag around a toy balloon, inflate, and see what happens!"

it's like your car tires with the exterior dictating the shape, and not the interior!

1. if fabric is stronger than balloon, the shape will be that of the fabric (like a pillow);

2. if fabric is weak and stretchable (like a woman's stocking), the shape will be that of the balloon's.

you can use canvass cloth, or double-layer your denim. I can't imagine the balloon's shape still prevailing over such restrictions, so long as the container is smaller than the balloon. there's no way it can deform its container.

I've got an additional idea. put the whole thing (balloon in it's fabric case) in a wooden box or cradle, and inflate it there. *that* should fix it.

So, if the fabric is stiff enough in bending that it can prevent bulging, you can contain the air mattress - but you will have a sleeping place no more comfortable than the floor itself, regardless of whether the mattress is inside the structure, and regardless of whether it is inflated or not. Hardly a solution!

In order to comprehend how easily a pressurized bag will bulge, think about the fabric air-jacks used by rescue crews to lift cars and trucks with modest air pressure. At higher pressures, metal structures can be hydroformed - it's used to make closed-section frame rails for cars, so the stiffness can be quite high, and still be overcome by internal pressure. The shape of a pressurized fabric bag will be dictated by tensile strength of its fibers, and the bending strength of those fibers will provide no more than a secondary modification. Hot air balloons with quite low internal pressures are naturally globular in shape; to get the fanciful shapes sometimes seen, they use multiple separate compartments, and/or place INTERNAL tension elements where they can limit spreading. The air mattress had such internal tension elements for the identical reason; their failure lead to the "weird shapes" that started this thread.

The fabric used to make large sails on boats is of VERY high strength, and the pressure (force per unit area) is low, yet they deform [granted, they are permitted to do so by design, to some extent, to obtain airfoil shapes, and to limit in-sheet tension - but no practical material could keep them flat if that were the design goal!].

"The fabric used to make large sails on boats is of VERY high strength, and the pressure (force per unit area) is low, yet they deform [granted, they are permitted to do so by design, to some extent, to obtain airfoil shapes, and to limit in-sheet tension - but no practical material could keep them flat if that were the design goal!]."

I don't think I mentioned that the fabric case would result to a flat air-bed surface. that would never be attainable with an air bed, in the first place. the moment a weight is placed on top of it, the surface curves in to give in to the weight.

Undoubtedly a fabric case would reduce "bounceability" of the bed, but I don't believe it will be the same as lying on the floor, either.

OP simply wanted to remove the uneven bulging of his airbed, and a fabric case, IMO could do it. OP hasn't come back with his comments, either.

"I don't think I mentioned that the fabric case would result to a flat air-bed surface. that would never be attainable with an air bed, in the first place." Good thing, too, since it is not true. PLEASE actually try the experiment! A large plastic bag (they're usually flat, if the bottom seal goes all the way across instead of being gathered like some trash can liners, and you can roll the top & tape it to define a pillow shape) three feet wide and six feet long will do [1 meter x 2 meters]. See what its natural shape is when inflated alone; place it inside a strong fabric bag, and inflate again. No bag handy? how about a single-wall cardboard box - that is stiffer than any ordinary fabric bag. Geez - why didn't that work? Because the fabric's elements are working in tension, NOT bending! Even corrugated cardboard, DESIGNED to withstand bending loads, can be deformed by modest pressure over such a large area. And that's well past a comfortable stiffness for sleeping upon. 0.5 psi was mentioned; over 3 x 6 feet, that's 1300 pounds (Think of the shape of the bottom of such a box simply supported only at its edges, and with 589 kilograms of sand in it...)

Yes, 1/4" plate steel would work better, as has been pointed out.

Recycle it and buy a KrisDel^TM one as a replacement (usual disclaimer).

the same thing happened to me last night, hence the reason why i'm even looking into this. at around 2 am the bed started to thump and the air moved and made bulges on the sides. this on top of a power outage made for a freaky experience.