How to securely seal an air mattress?

We think you are familiar with the situation when you are staying overnight with friends on an air mattress, and by morning you find that you are practically lying on the floor. Despite all the convenience, efficiency and functionality of such beds, you have to ask yourself how to glue an air mattress more than once: no matter how rarely and neatly you use it, it will cease to hold air as well as it did at first. after the purchase. Find out how to identify the culprit of the leak and how to resolve such a problematic situation.

Eliminate valve malfunction

Before scolding children or a cat for making holes, make sure that the mattress is blown away for no other reason, and this may well be a malfunction in the valve. Perhaps sticking a mattress is not necessary at all and you can limit yourself to repairing this part.

Lie down on an inflatable bed, raise your hand to the valve and listen: if you feel or hear air coming out in this place, then returning the valve will help you to wake up on the floor. To get started, try pulling out the valve, rinsing it off from dust and putting it back: the debris accumulated in the grooves may well be the cause of the problem. But this method will work only if the valve is not damaged and does not have cracks in the pump hole. In this case, it will not work to repair the part at home: you will have to buy and replace the valve with a new one. Also, the cause of the leak may be an improperly installed or simply loosely latched valve, and since these options are most easily identified by eye, try to exclude them first.

Tip

To keep the valve in its original form for a long time, do not screw the pump too tight when pumping the mattress.

We find the source of the leak

Is everything all right with the valve, and it became obvious that there are still holes in the material? Well, sticking them at home is quite realistic, but first you need to determine exactly where the gap is, and to do this without the use of household tricks oh how difficult. By the way, in this situation you can not look for the guilty one: very often holes appear on air mattresses simply during operation without extraneous mechanical damage.

• A great way to identify holes is to use a foam solution, which is best done on the basis of bath foam or dish detergent. On a completely filled with air mattress area after area, apply the solution with a sponge, rag or spray bottle, and you will see that in some places large bubbles, like soap bubbles, begin to form. It is in this place that you need to look for a hole.
• First of all, holes must be sought at the boundaries of the adhesion of the external canvas with internal elements, and this is the entire length of the relief pattern. This place is most vulnerable, although small tears along the seam or on the main canvas cannot be excluded.
• Having found a hole, circle it with a pen or marker so as not to forget its location, because you can only glue the mattress when it is dry, and by that time the tears can be lost from view.

Also, do not relax when you find one hole: often, especially on older mattresses, you have to deal with several breaks at the same time, so it is better to inspect the mattress thoroughly and completely.

Tip

When inflating a mattress, remember that over-filling it with air over time can cause small or even large gaps on the surface.

We seal holes and tears on an air mattress

In the same store where you bought the bed, you probably sell branded repair kits to fix the problem, but you most likely want to know how to glue the air mattress at home so as not to waste money on expensive sets. You can fix the air bed correctly and in high quality yourself using improvised means, if you follow a certain algorithm.

1. Proceed with gluing only after the mattress is completely dry after taking soap baths.
2. Buy glue for PVC: the classic "Moment" is quite suitable, because after drying it becomes like rubber. But its transparent variations, although they will make the patch more accurate, can adversely affect its quality, since such compositions after drying “glass” and can crack when bent. For the same reason, superglue does not work. In addition, it can spoil the PVC material, as it is an aggressive adhesive.
3. As a patch, you can use a piece of thin rubber or, for example, a patch from a set for repairing tires, if you are a motorist and they are lying around without work. In this case, the patch should cover the hole at least 1 cm on each side. So, for a simple barely noticeable hole, you need to cut a circle with a diameter of 2-3 cm.
4. Both the gap area and the patch itself must be thoroughly degreased with acetone or other means if you want the grip to be really strong. If your mattress has a flocked surface, then the pile must first be removed with acetone or fine sandpaper: it will not work to stick a patch to it.

Due to the specifics of working with Moment glue, it is possible to glue the mattress only in a deflated form, otherwise it will not be possible to press the surfaces against each other strongly, since the mattress will spring. Put glue on the damaged area on the mattress and on the patch, wait 5 minutes, firmly press the surfaces against each other and fix the patch in place with the load for the next 24 hours.

Tip

If the mattress began to bleed air on a camping trip or campground and there is no way to fix it, a good electrical tape will completely cope with the problem before you arrive home, although this method does not work well on a velor surface.

To fix an air mattress with your own hands, without going to the workshop and not buying special repair kits, it is real if you allocate a little time for this and follow the recommendations listed!