Since we bought it, our bed must have been used about 20 times overall, and only by one adult at a time, so never more than half of its weight capacity rating of 500 lbs. It has never met any children or pet that could have been a threat for it, and has always been used and stored in a living room with normal temperature and humidity conditions.
In other words there is no reason for the problems we have experienced with the mattress. The leaks began after only 5-6 times, within the first year of purchase. The first time you deal with it and fix it, thinking it must be a stand alone misfortune. Second time, you still cope. But then when it's the 5th or 6th time you find your guests sleeping on the floor because of a deflated air mattress, I must confess that the whole concept loses much of its charm and even becomes embarrassing.
Here's a close-up of the picture shown on the bag:
This is the air pump that came with our bed. It's like a cylinder that screws directly in a cylindrical socket built in the mattress. It is reversible: one side to inflate, one side to deflate. Trivial.
The pump model number is E236150. I noticed newer beds seem to come with different models so this is important should a replacement mattress become an option.
Now the holes. Some of the pictures below show a shiny layer covering the holes. This is a stuff manufactured by Coghlan's called "Airstop" vinyl repair. It's a liquid glue used to patch the holes. The glue and patches provided with the mattress did not work at all in our case because the holes were not on a flat surface. I have to admit that this Airstop stuff worked extremely well on this mattress. But with a constant flow of new holes on both sides, this patch solution was not an option.
As can be seen below, the hole broke out right in a fold or seam on th edge of oval shapes on the mattress. This one is the largest we had, but they all followed the same pattern.
Below is the same hole as above, but pictured when the mattress was inflated:
It couldn't be clearer that the holes are located right in recessed folds of the mattress, which is obviously a problem with the mattress design or a weakness in the material itself.
Below is a zoom-out showing many holes to substantiate my observations:
Same area, but this time deflated:
I'll go through all other holes one by one.
The next ones are taken just before we applied the liquid patch on it:
This is a new one pictured today when we took the mattress out the bag to take pictures.
And another one in progress:
We have also found and repaired other types of holes. We have no idea what may have caused them, but possibly the mattress was pinched during manutention:
Thanks for reading. I will hold this blog until the situation is resolved to our entire satisfaction. In the meantime, I am hoping to provide useful information to anyone interested in purchasing a Woods - North Pole bed.
