How do you build a water bed?
Anyone who buys a new waterbed can usually have it installed in their bedroom by the dealer. This has the advantage, among other things, that the building specialists are also trained in the same way as to the optimal fill quantity of the water mattress, so that you have a usable, well-adjusted water bed available relatively quickly if you let warm, i.e. tempered, water run in when you fill it. If cold water is poured in, you have to wait until the waterbed heating has brought it to a comfortable level, which can take a few days depending on the temperature of the water and the heating power.
If you still want to assemble your waterbed yourself, you should follow the manufacturer’s assembly instructions. If this is not (no longer) available, you can roughly orientate yourself on the following procedure, whereby we assume a pure softside waterbed without an additional bed frame:
First of all, the lower base must be mounted. Then the weight distributors (usually cross-shaped) are plugged together or screwed and placed in the base. Then you can put on the base plate and, if necessary, also fix it with brackets or screws. The base plate usually protrudes approx. 10 centimeters above the plinth substructure.
Depending on the waterbed system, it is now advisable to place the lower part of the cover or the top plate on the base plate (if necessary, remove the upper cover part or the upper cover parts that form the actual lying surface beforehand). Now the wedge-shaped foam elements of the softside frame can be positioned in relation to the base plate.
Now the heater is placed on the base plate before the safety film / safety trough is laid out. Care should be taken to ensure that the heating cable is routed in such a way that a power supply can be established. The analog or digital controller for the heating should of course be in an easily accessible location.
If the heater is right, the safety film can be spread out and pulled around the foam wedges. You should make sure that it is properly fixed at the edges and corners. Then you can pull up the lower part of the cover in order to visually hide the security film. Now the water core or the water mattress can be inserted and filled. If you have a double waterbed with a dual system, the so-called thermal wall must be inserted between the two water cores before filling.
A conventional garden hose, which is simply connected to a water connection in the house, is suitable for filling the water bed. Before using it, it should be disinfected inside and out to avoid contamination of the water mattress. The tube should be inserted approx. 40 cm to 50 cm into the mattress. Warm water is recommended for filling so that you don’t have to wait for days for the waterbed to be up to temperature. However, the water should not be filled in hot, because the good insulation of the waterbed prevents the water from cooling down too quickly. With a hot filling, the bed would be far too warm for a restful sleep for days, if not weeks. We recommend reading “How full does a waterbed have to be?” To find the right amount of fill.
How resilient are waterbeds?
High quality water beds are very resistant. They are robustly designed for a long service life and are normally not impressed by pets or raging children. Due to their construction, water beds are also ideally suited as beds for overweight people.
How much water beds can withstand has been put to the test many times. There are numerous photos circulating on the web in which elephants have “parked” their not very slim buttocks on a waterbed mattress or images that document that a waterbed does not give way even when it is rolled over by a massive tank.
How full does a waterbed have to be?
The filling amount of the waterbed is decisive for the comfort you can lie down or sleep on. It depends in particular on the body weight of the user. The following rule of thumb is used to calculate the optimal filling quantity of water mattresses: Volume (of the water mattress) minus half the body weight (of the user).
A small example: Let’s assume a rectangular container with a size of 90 cm x 200 cm and a height of 23 cm. This has a volume of 414 liters (length x width x height). If the future user of the waterbed weighs 70 kg, the 414 liters must be reduced by 35 (50% of 70 kg). Accordingly, our exemplary water mattress would have to be filled with approx. 379 liters of water for a user weighing 70 kg.
If the first filling of the water bed has been carried out using the “rule of thumb calculation”, you can check whether the water bed is already 100% correctly set by the future user lying on the water mattress on their side. If the spine is in a straight line (from the cervical vertebra to the tailbone) during this reclining exercise, the water mattress is optimally filled.
