My Water Bed Is Leaking!

If your water bed has a leak you probably caused it! I have sold and installed hundreds of water beds. I have fielded dozens of frantic calls. I have made plenty of home visits and I have repaired numerous water bed problems. At the end of the day, when I look back at this experience, I can truth fully say that 98% of waterbed problems are directly the consumers fault. Here are some glaring observations that may save you grief.

The main cause for water bed complaints is a leak right after filling the water bed with water. Filling a water bed, because of the long time it can take (in my neck of the woods many people have private water systems and wells that may barely tricky) is usually a consumer do it yourself task. Only about one in one thousand water bed bladders will leak from the factory. One error a consumer can commit when filling a mattress is not to have the proper fill nozzle which attaches firmly from the garden hose to the water bed mattress.

The main error a consumer makes is to forget to place a dry bunched up towel between the foot of the bed and the filling nozzle. Even if you do not see a visible leak at the filling point, an occasional drip can occur. Plus, when filled, the mattress is prone to heave some water up during the process of screwing off the fill nozzle and capping the bed up. When a drip does happen, it travels too fast to catch unless the towel is there. If you let a lot of drops escape, it will appear that your new water bed mattress is leaking. Even if you lose just a few drops, the moisture that will result will live between your mattress and liner and can develop a musty mildew odor.

Here is another silly consumer complaint. “My waterbed gets my pajamas wet when I sleep, but there are no other signs of leakage.” By the way, these are true stories. So, I get the complaint and I have to do a home visit to check out the waterbed mattress. I quickly figure out that this person has their water bed heater cranked up toasty but he does not have a mattress pad on his bed. The only barrier between his skin and the toasty vinyl is a thin set of sheets. He was sweating up a storm while he slept and figured it was a leak!

Another phone call, my waterbed is leaking from hundreds of pin holes, what kind of crap did you sell me? Another home visit to find a water mattress with a big old cat hanging out on it, doing that clench the claws over and over thing, right through the sheets and vinyl mattress. Yikes!