Is it Okay or Bad to Have Wrinkles in the Top of My Waterbed Mattress?

Most of the time the answer is yes but there are a couple of very important things to look at and make sure of before coming to the conclusion everything is ok.

Make sure the waterbed mattress is properly installed and is in the correct position within the wood framed or soft-sided waterbed frame. It is important to make sure to the bottom corners of water mattress are positioned into the bottom corners of the empty cavity. We recommend a person to position themselves at a corner pulling gently apart from another located at the other corner in the directions of length, diagonal, and width. Repeat this positioning process until all four corners of mattress and waterbed cavity are in alignment.

A waterbed mattress that is not placed inside the cavity properly can be a problem or an accident waiting to happen. Mattress discomfort can be the least of your problems with a badly positioned mattress: corner seam failures, unnecessary stretching, and improper heat dissipation can cause a waterbed heater to burn. These are the unfortunate results of an improperly installed water bed mattress.

A large number of waterbed manufacturers put additional or excess vinyl in the top surface of the mattress. This extra material or wrinkled mattress surface is often questioned by customers, but is put there intentionally to minimize stretching and increase mattress life while reducing painful pressure points on the body.

Some companies emboss the mattress surface with egg carton looking bubbles. This controlled stretching also increases the life of the vinyl waterbed mattress. This surface, which has extra slack and wrinkles claims to greatly reduces pressure points on the human body and slows down uncontrolled mattress stretching better than the traditional waterbed mattress.

The vinyl water mattress sides and bottom are cut to fit the waterbed cavity and there should be not real large wrinkles to speak of. Very small wrinkles in the sides and bottom vinyl are normal but are generally harmless. Sometimes fatigue cracks can develop, but these stress cracks in a water mattresses can easily be repaired with a vinyl patch kit.

An improperly installed waterbed mattress can put unnecessary stresses on the corner seams causing excess water pressure in mattresses’ most vulnerable places.