How do I repair a punctured airbed or sleeping mat?

An airbed or mat that goes down overnight is not necessarily holed. Air also escapes past a valve, through a seam, and — for a self-inflating mat — through delamination of the foam from the shell, which is not repairable. Finding out which you have takes ten minutes and saves patching a bed that has nothing wrong with the fabric.

What you'll need

• A repair kit with patches and the correct adhesive
• Washing-up liquid and water in a spray bottle or bowl
• Isopropyl alcohol
• Something flat and heavy
• Scissors (optional)

Step by step

1. Check the valve before hunting for a hole.Inflate fully, close the valve, and put a soapy solution over and around it. A stem valve that is not seated, a perished valve seal, or grit under it will lose air steadily. Many are removable and can be cleaned or replaced.
2. Inflate hard and listen in a quiet room.Firmer than you would sleep on. A hiss is often audible; pass a hand slowly over the surface to feel airflow on damp skin.
3. Use soapy water to find it.Washing-up liquid in water, brushed or sprayed over the surface in sections. Bubbles form at the hole. Work systematically — top, sides, seams, then the base.
4. Or submerge it section by section.In a bath, pressing each area under water and watching for a stream of bubbles. Slower, but it finds pinholes that soapy water misses. Dry it thoroughly afterwards.
5. Check the seams and the underside.Seams are the most common failure on an airbed, and they are the hardest to patch because the surface is not flat. The underside picks up thorns and stones and is the second most likely place.
6. Mark the hole clearly.A permanent marker circle well away from the hole itself, so the ink is not under the patch. It is remarkably easy to lose a pinhole once the bed is dry.
7. Clean and prepare the area.Deflate, clean with isopropyl alcohol, and let it dry. On flocked PVC — the velvety surface most airbeds have — the flock must be removed from the patch area with fine abrasive paper, or the patch is only stuck to fluff.
8. Cut a patch with rounded corners.Overlapping the hole by at least 2cm in every direction. Square corners lift first, every time.
9. Use the adhesive the material needs.PVC airbeds take PVC repair adhesive or a vinyl patch kit. Nylon-shelled self-inflating mats take the manufacturer's kit or a urethane repair adhesive. Ordinary superglue is brittle and fails on a surface that flexes and stretches.
10. Press it down and weight it.Work out the air bubbles from the centre outwards, then leave it under a flat weight for the full cure time — often 12 to 24 hours. Inflating early lifts the edges and wastes the repair.
11. Test before the trip, not on it.Inflate and leave overnight at home. An airbed that holds for eight hours at home will hold at a campsite.
12. Recognise a mat that cannot be repaired.A self-inflating mat with large soft lumps and a rippled surface has delaminated — the foam has come away from the shell inside. That is not a puncture and it cannot be patched. Similarly, a seam that is splitting along its length on an airbed is generally the end of it.

Tips

• Cold nights make an airbed feel soft even with no leak at all: air contracts as it cools. Top it up before bed rather than assuming a puncture.
• A groundsheet or a footprint under an airbed prevents most punctures in the first place.
• Keep the repair kit with the bed, not in a drawer at home.

Common mistakes

• Patching over the flocked surface — The velvety flock is only lightly bonded to the PVC underneath. A patch stuck to it holds for one night and peels, because the flock lets go rather than the adhesive. It has to be sanded away first.
• Assuming a soft bed in the morning means a puncture — Air cools overnight and contracts, and a bed inflated firm in a warm evening is noticeably softer at 5am with no leak whatsoever. Test at a constant temperature before opening a repair kit.

If it doesn't work

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