Aerobed mattress

In case you are interested....

My wife and I have a Select Comfort bed at home. We really like it as each of us had different levels of firmness that we prefer. Now it would be great to have one in the TM, but at $1400 or so, it is out of the question. Not to mention, what to do with the huge air pump.
We followed with interest various threads on what other folks are doing to make their sleeping experience better. We caught the one about the Aerobed mattress topper, but as we purchased our TM this year we were too late to buy that one as it was discontinued. Now, perusing a Sportsmans Guide catalog we found a dual control Aerobed for sale (being discontinued again). We thought we would give it a try.
We are very happy with the unit as we now can pump up each side to the desired firmness. The bed is 9 inches high inflated so it is necessary to deflate prior to takedown. Three issues arose with this bed:
1. The two pumps that are built in require AC power. Not an issue when camping with utilities, but we also have a Xantrex power converter that is adequate for inflating/deflating the mattress when no power is available.
2. The two pumps are on one end of the bed, right under the fluorescent light. We found out the hard way about that, when I had a hard time locking down the back shell. When we opened up I found that the bulb was broken. So, it is necessary to deflate the mattress AND flip that end toward the middle of the bed where there is enough room for proper closure.
3. Lastly, we noticed that when in bed the metal of the TM coming in contact with the plastic of the bed made squeaking sounds whenever someone climbed in or turned over. To resolve that, my wife found a older queen sheet set. She used the flat sheet to put under the air mattress. That resolved the squeaking problem. She used the fitted one over the mattress, we then place our sleeping bags on top of them.
Again, we are very pleased with this setup, albeit a little more involved than before.
Oh...we did find that the stool provided in the TM was a bit low now that the bed is higher when inflated. Have ordered a two step folding stool to resolve this one.

Mike Anderson

Mike
Thanks for the heads-up. I'm a young w/s (sub 41) but still find the firm foam on that back queen bed, well, firm! I am spoiled sleeping on a waveless waterbed for the last 18 years... DW and I were discussing the options after last weekend's camping trip. Talked about the memory foam toppers and also the airbeds. Had read about the aerobeds before, but saw they were d/c. This was a great find, thanks! Questions though.... can you feel each other moving around? Does it fit well in the space? Where did you stow the old mattress? Worried at all about leaks/durability?
Thanks again for pointing this out.

Troy

Questions though.... can you feel each other moving around? Does it fit well in the space? Where did you stow the old mattress? Worried at all about leaks/durability?

Troy,

I didn't notice much in the line of movement at all. Not quite as good as the Select Confort (but a whole lot cheaper). I would think if someone on the other side did some jumping up and down you would feel it, but otherwise no. Ironically about 5 years ago we bought a queen size standard Aerobed for guests at the house. Welll....that one is a lot of fun if you have two people. I am not light and when we used it once my wife almost popped out of bed when I turned over....not so with the new one.
It fits perfectly in the space of our 2720SL. You do have to realize that it is 9 inches tall so deflating is necessary when traveling.
The old mattress is stored in our shed.
As to leaks and durability, the manufacturer warrants the bed for 2 years. I think it was discontinued most likely because of slow sales not because it being defective (but time will tell there). I am not too worried about that.
By the way we bought a couple of those swimming noodles (mentioned elsewhere in this forum) to block cool air coming up around the edges. Worked great, AND you can't even see them when the mattress is inflated.

Here is the link to the bed: http://www.sportsmansguide.com/cb/cb.asp?a=354385

Mike Anderson

I have a bad hip and sleeping on the standard TM mattress in our '05 2619 was not a possibility for me. I bought some closed cell half inch foam as an under mattress pad (which we can leave on when we close up) but my hip still bottomed out. I experimented with a couple of other options including stacking both mattresses on top of the foam but never arrived at a good solution which didn't substantially increase the set up and take down time.

While packing for a canoe camping trip I looked at our two "Camp Rest" Therm-A-Rests and had an epiphany. These are the self inflating sleeping pads available from most camping outlets including Campmor.com and Cabela's.com. At the time we purchased ours 2" was the thickest but they now make a 3" model. With the closed cell foam, Therm-A-Rests and TM mattress we now sleep in comfort. When closing up we open the Therm-A-Rest valves and use them to pad the hanging cabinet and television which ride on the floor. As they are self inflating they use no power (although you can adjust the firmness by orally adding a couple of puffs of air) and add negligible time to the set up/take down process. It works for us! - Camp2Canoe

[bebotx]

Mike,

I did the same thing as you - I found the dual control queen Aerobed on sale at a bed/bath store and so far it's great. We took out the original foam slab mattress, and turned our Aerobed so that the pumps are at the "foot" of the bed (shower side of the trailer). Then we carefully folded the back shell down to make sure we would clear without crushing the pumps and it worked like a charm.

I also added a featherbed-type mattress cover with stretchy sides from Wally World (about 1-1/2" thick) on top of the Aerobed, and topped that with a queen fitted sheet. We put an old twin quilt under the Aerobed to quiet the squeak and add a little insulation.

Now we can leave the the whole thing made up, and just deflate the Aerobed when we close up. At the next campground, with a press of a couple of buttons the bed is inflated, made and ready. We put the original mattress in storage and it'll be nice and new looking if/when we trade up to a larger TM!

Betty

Betty,

So you put the pumps at the shower end of the TM and it is not necessary to fold them toward the middle? That sounds like a great idea. As to power I guess you used the outlet by the converter? This sounds to me like I need to get into the trailer and do a little rearranging....

Mike

[bebotx]

Yes the pumps are left down at the foot of the bed against the wall that holds the tv shelf and I run an extension cord over to the outlet on the lower bathroom wall by the 12v plug. I have a layer of quilt to squelch the squeak, then the aerobed mattress with a 1-1/2'' mattress topper covering the mattrss, and a queen size fitted sheet on top of that. Finally, we have a quilt on top of the sheet. We just leave itall together and deflate/inflate without taking it apart until it's time to do laundry. We think it's quite comfy!

[Joesjunk]

Can the pump run on 12 Volts ? Or just 120 VAC?

Joe,

The Aerobed is designed for 110. As I mentioned in the original post, you could use a power converter (with built in battery). I tried mine (up to 400 watts) and it did just fine. It takes appx. a minute to inflate/deflate.

Mike

Chuck & I are new TM owner and the first improvement we made was to replace the mattress with an Aerobed. We have the same set up with the controls at the feet. It allows for easy set up and take down. We deflate it for fold down. We sleep quietly with very little awareness of the other's movement. I have a touchy hip and it does exremely well on this setup. We went to a TM after years & years of tent camping for a more comfortable sleep and this really did the trick. Light-weight and extremely comfortable. We have had about 20 nights on it so far and very, very happy.