How to Properly Fill a Waterbed Mattress

There are a couple of hints that we want to share with you to make the installation of your new mattress as easy as possible and ensure a perfect night's sleep, even the first night.

Unscrew the aerator from a nearby bathroom or kitchen faucet and replace with the two piece faucet adapter that came with your fill kit. Note that you may only need the bottom piece if the threads on your faucet are on the outside. If you need both pieces, notice that there are grooves on the underside of the top piece so that it may easily be removed from the faucet with a coin; not necessitating using pliers and stripping the threads to remove.

Using luke-warm water to fill your mattress means that you can comfortably sleep on it as soon as you are done. If your hot water supply runs out, turn off the water, have a drink or watch a TV program, and resume filling later. There are no time limits! Your waterbed heater will only increase the temperature of your bed less than one degree per hour. Thirty five degrees to 85 degrees could be more than 5 days to wait! It also insures that it will not be overfilled. Water expands as it is heated and contracts as it cools. Remember that your heater goes beneath the heavy duty safety liner and the end of the temperature probe should be at least a foot from the heater pad. We recommend that you place your heater on the left or right side, not in the middle. It is simply easier to get to if something goes wrong with it without having to drain your mattress and it will still evenly heat your bed. Make sure that the heater pad is NOT placed over a crack in the decking and NOT so close to the edge that you would be able to accidentally tuck any bedding on top of it. Do not plug your heater into a wall outlet until your mattress is full!!

When installing your water mattress, square it up in your frame according to the bottom of the reinforced corner tabs. Square everything to the bottom corners; the top will take care of itself. Add about 1" of luke-warm water. This is enough to add weight so it stays put and no longer tries to crawl back in the box from being vacuum packed. You and your helper each take opposite sides of the bed and tug against each other to make sure that there are no wrinkles in the safety liner. Next, if you invested in a zippered cover with your new mattress, make sure that the bottom corners are square in the corners of your wood frame and there are no wrinkles. Last, repeat the process with the bottom of your mattress. It is most important that there be absolutely no wrinkles over the heater pad. Wrinkles insulate the pad and allow it to overheat, sometimes damaging the liner, cover, mattress and heater pad. Wrinkles underneath the mattress also give you less "top mattress" to sleep on. Your "butt" should be at least above the bottom when you sit on the side of your bed. There should be wrinkles on the top of your mattress. This is where the water flows when you get in bed. If there are no wrinkles on top, your mattress will stretch to make its own. This decreases your mattress life and does not give you as good a night's sleep.