Hardsided Waterbed Information

Before you decide to purchase a hardsided waterbed mattress you need to know the facts. A hard sided waterbed has wood sides. The other waterbed is called a softside and it has soft sides and looks like a regular innerspring mattress.

Waterbed sizes

The softsided waterbed goes along with conventional mattress sizes, but the discussion here is about hard sided or wood sided waterbeds. The hard sided waterbed has sides of dimensional lumber, usually 2 X 10 lumber, which is actually about 1 1/2" x 9 1/2". When you measure the size of this waterbed, you measure the inside of the waterbed frame, not the outside. The california king or waterbed king size is 72" x 84" inside of the frame. The california queen or waterbed queen size is 60" x 84". The super single size is 48" x 84".

• King Size Waterbed Mattress: 72 in. X 84 in.
• Queen Size Waterbed Mattress: 60 in. X 84 in.
• Super-Single Waterbed Mattress: 48 in. X 84 in.

Hardsided waterbeds may have some wave reduction built in and if they do you get to choose the degree of wave reduction, the manner of wave reduction and the the price you want to pay. You can purchase the full wave mattress, which is the least expensive, and is just basically a sophisticated, well built sack of water. The full wave mattress has all of the original waterbed motion. Be prepared to rock and roll.

One way to reduce the wave motion of mattresses is to add fiber, in layers. The fiber that we use in our mattrtesses is 1.2 oz. of 2 inch Dupont fiber per layer. You can choose how many layers you prefer, up to 7 layers, which renders the mattress wave free. You may wonder why someone would want a wave free waterbed but because the human body is mostly water, sleeping pressure points are greatly reduced along with almost no motion, a plus for some people. Every great idea has some drawbacks and I believe in being honest so here are the drawbacks on fiber waterbeds. First of all, a good water conditioner should be used because fiber, by its nature, traps water and the conditioner has a harder time reaching every bit of water. The other drawback is they can be very difficult to drain. A gallon of water weighs 8.34 pounds so a few gallons of water can add up. Generally, the more layers of fiber, the more difficult it is to drain. Pumps to help with this are available.

Another way to reduce the motion of the waterbed is through a baffle system. Depending upon the number and height of the vinyl baffles or chambers, you can reduce the wave motion almost to 100%. We offer several choices of baffled mattresses that can fit any need. The downside to the baffled mattress is again they can be a bit hard to drain, but not nearly as difficult as the fiber mattress. Another major problem with the baffled mattress is the baffles, if not attached, can move out of place when you drain the mattress. If this happens, the mattress is all but ruined. Our baffled waterbed mattresses are tethered, which means that they are attached to the waterbed on all four sides to greatly reduce this possibility. This is a great feature.

When you decide to buy a waterbed mattress, I hope that you consider one of ours. Our waterbed mattresses are proudly built in the USA with top quality thick vinyl using state of the art designs and machinery.