After you have located the leak, we recommend using one of the following methods for conducting your repair:
Instant Field Repair Kit
Permanent Home Repair Kit
WingLock Valve Repair Kit
Classic Valve Repair Kit
Instant Field Repair
Permanent at Home Repair
Thoroughly Clean Surface of Pad Before Patching
We find patch jobs fail most often due to poor surface prep; the surface of the pad was not properly cleaned and the glue couldn’t establish a solid hold on the fabric of the pad. The alcohol wipe in the repair kits should always be used to thoroughly remove all dirt and grime from the puncture area. Aim for one-inch diameter around the puncture at the very least. Isopropyl alcohol in excess can damage and weaken the fabrics, but applying a little bit with a wipe or a paper towel is perfectly safe, and necessary for a long-lasting patch job.
If you’re at home, our Permanent Home Repair Kit can help you patch a puncture. Depending on the model of mattress, it may require sitting overnight, but since you’re home that shouldn’t cause too many issues.
If you experience a puncture while out camping, hopefully, you’ve brought a Field Repair Kit with you. These kits are included with all of our NeoAir pads and easily slide into the included stuff sack. Though either of our repair kits will work, the Field Repair Kit is designed to provide a speedy, no-cure fix for any mattress.
Glue is Where the Magic Happens
The Instant Field Repair Kit uses glue dots to seal off punctures and adhesive patches to place over the dots for protection and a cleaner final look and feel. This is a key point about all pad repairs: it’s the glue that does the actual sealing, not the patch. The patch is for protecting the adhesive for a longer lasting seal and to improve the final look and feel with a fabric layer. Many of the self-repairs that we redo fail because not enough adhesive was used, or it was improperly applied.
The glue dots make applying adhesive very simple with their one-size-fits-all approach, but if you are getting into a Permanent Home Repair Kit you’ll be applying the adhesive from a tube and using the wooden stick applicator. So long as you use enough adhesive to thoroughly work it into the puncture and establish an adequate perimeter around the puncture area, even 1-inch long tears can be effectively sealed off.
The Repair Shop uses Gear Aid Aquaseal UV extensively to repair pads because it allows them to work much quicker through the stacks of pads that need repair. The adhesive in the Permanent Home Repair Kit is just as strong, but it has to sit for four hours—with a weighted press—to properly cure, seal, and hold a patch in place.
Weighted Press (We’re Not in the Gym)
A weighted press is essential with an adhesive that takes a few hours to cure, such as that in the Permanent Home Repair Kit. When this adhesive is applied to a fabric patch, the patch will react by curling back onto itself. Weighting it will ensure a flat, even adherence and distribution of the adhesive to seal off a puncture.
You should be prepared for the adhesive to squish out from under the patch when weighted. This is a good thing, as it means there is sufficient adhesive to fill out the perimeter and seal off the puncture. However, whatever you have on top of the patch will get a strong adhesive on it and it is a nuisance to remove. A stack of books or a pot full of water are both good weighted presses, but you probably don’t want glue on them.
A towel between the pad and the weight will solve this issue, but like a paper towel, it is likely that bits of it will end up stuck to your pad. This won’t hurt the performance or compromise the repair, but it can be unsightly and difficult to remove. The Repair Staff have wrapped metal weights in Uline 3 mil Fiberglass Tape for this reason. While this is probably overkill for home use, we had it on hand from another project and it does a great job not leaving bits stuck to the pad.