Sleeping Pad Failure – poll

Arkansas. Cold and raining. I was using an alcohol stove under my shelter. The pot fell over, hot water rushed towards me and I dropped my knife to grab a towel. I slept on the ground that night. I can't prove that I did it, but the hole was exactly where I dropped the knife. It was a brand new therm-a-rest prolite plus. I still love it though, I just have to keep "me" away from it when I'm not around.

So far I have not had any failures. I started using an early Thermarest in the 1980's, switched to a Thermarest LE in the mid 1990's and switched to a POE Insulmat Max Thermo (now the Ether Thermo) five years ago.

Each change was made not because anything happened to the old pad but because it was not sufficiently cushioning my increasingly sensitive hips and shoulders. When you are awake half the night tossing and turning and trying not to scream with the pain, you will take the risk of an inflatable pad to get a good night's sleep!

One of the benefits of changing to the POE insulated air pad is that it is thick enough that my dog doesn't scoot himself on top of it and push me off onto the tent floor. This was a problem with the Thermarest LE!

My dog sleeps in my tent (he's part of my sleep system!), but he is not allowed to put a foot near my POE pad nor my WM Ultralight! I also clip his claws twice a month to keep them as short as possible.

My Thermarest Guidelite 3/4 is about 7 years old. Over a hundred nights of sleeping and ocassional usage as a chair. Still going strong. I mainly use a foam pad now, but I still bring out the Thermarest for winter trips.

Interesting to hear all of the different experiences and opinions. I should add that I have had a couple different older guidelite thermarests that have seen over 10 years of use with no issues.

I have more questions related to sleeping pads. I think rather then derail my own thread I will create another. Please see:

Sleeping Pad Failure – Part 2 – What Now?

Soon to be posted on a forum near you.

Jeff

I have had POE and exped failures but no Therm-a-Rest failures. Even my 30 year old orange Therm-a-Rest pads are leak free after hundreds of nights in the backcountry and a couple hundred more at scout camps, sleepovers, and backyard adventures. I have two xtherms, a large and a shortened large with no issues, but only a hundred nights or so on each at this point.

resurrecting a good old thread : )

My Ridgerest Guide Lite never had a problem but it weighs 2 pounds.  I should give it to the Goodwill.  Hmmm… I should use it when I’m car camping.

My first Pro Lite delaminated, REI gave me a new one.

That one delaminated so I got a third one.

I think that’s just what happens with those.  If I never put all my weight with my hand on it I think that helps.  After it starts delaminating I can still use it the rest of that trip.

The third Pro Lite is different – weighs slightly more.  I think maybe they reformulated it so it doesn’t delaminate so easily.

I get several years of use, and I use it a lot, so I think this is just the cost of light weight.  It weighs 1 pound.

Once I poked something into one of these and patched with Seam Grip.  I used it the rest of the trip but it was uncomfortable.

I don’t sleep good on a thin foam pad.  The 1 inch Pro Lite isn’t too bad.

I had an Exped synmat 7 (with built-in pump) have a baffle let go once near Grindstone Mtn in the WA Cascades. It resulted in a big lump in the middle of my pad. I was still able to sleep and be warm, but it was not completely comfortable.

I had a 3/4 length Thermarest (back when orange was the only color) from 1988 that NEVER failed…I ended up selling it last year ’cause I never use it.

The insulated/inflatable pads that Exped makes help to me to actually sleep (instead of just rest), and my arm no longer falls asleep like it used to with the Thermarest.

We currently use the Exped Synmat-7 3D in cold weather/snow camping, and use Exped Synmat 7 UL for summer. We also have backup system (see description below).

That being said, we treat the pads very gently. Always are either in the pack (inside a stuff sack) or in the tent (with ground sheet under the tent). And, very important: My wife and I both carry a 1/4″ thick yellow eva foam (from MEC) that is about 50″ long. We place it under our Exped’s to increase the R-value -AND-if one persons Exped pad fails that person gets to use <span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>both</span> of the EVA pads. Not a perfect backup system, but, good enough to make a popped pad be a nuisance instead of the bad problem.

I’ve been using a Thermarest Xtherm for the past ~ 5 years with zero problems.

Just once, but not from use/misuse.

I have had a TAR self-inflater, POE air mattress, a first gen (rectangular) NeoAir and 3 (short, reg and long) of the current NeoAir generation.  Only leak I ever had was the first gen NeoAir.  It developed multiple small leaks along the seams, which is a known problem with that generation…Cascade replaced it no questions asked.

Exped Downmat 9- Blown internal baffle, Exped replaced.

Exped UL Downmat- Multiple pinhole leaks. Exped repaired.

Exped UL Pillow- Blown internal baffle. Requested an RA number from Exped to repair/replace or recycle.

My husband’s TAR X-Lite (LW) got a slow leak after ~8 nights of trail use, followed by 6 nights on a carpet indoors.  Strangely, the leak only started towards the end of the “indoor camping” period.

Sent back to TAR — they replaced it.  The fact that we got a replacement rather than a repair leads me to believe that it was a defective pad from the get-go.

He also had a baffle blow out on an Exped Hyperlite after VERY little use.  Exped sent a replacement.

7-year-old BA Insulated Air Core mattresses (2), both leak on line along seams, both side of pad.  BA fully replaced under warranty.

I had a neoair xlite pop on me one night. An “L” shaped tear 1/2″ x 1/2″. Cleaned it with hand sanitizer and patched it in the morning.

I’ve been using my Thermarest Xlite for 5 seasons now with no issues.  I also have a 3 year old Xtherm that has performed flawlessly.  To be honest, I have never had a problem with any inflatable pads I have used.  Still have self inflating Thermarest from the 1980’s that is still chucking along.

Now, having said this I’ll probably have a pad failure on my next trip ;)

I’ve been living and sleeping on Thermarest and Exped pads since 1980 and in these years have had many blowouts, leaks and problems.  At least 10 Thermys have delaminated—you know the drill—the inflatable pad forms a bubble where the pad fabric separates from the foam,

My latest Delams have been with the Thermy 40th Anniversary pads—

The first one blew out on a 20 day trip to Slickrock Creek.

My second 40th blew out as I was preparing for a trip at home and using the pad to sleep in the backyard to make sure it’s good to go.  Oops, not so good.

I started a 19 day winter trip into NC’s Snowbird wilderness and on Night 1 my Exped downmat blew a baffle which caused me to detour 12 miles to an emergency Thermarest cache—and so Exped fell outside my Circle of Trust.

There are several solutions to these kind of problems out in the field.  I now carry a CCF Solar pad along with my inflatable.  And I also carry an emergency NeoAir—the smallest they make—as part of my standard load, just in case.

The NeoAir ready to go.

I’ve been using a Nemo Tensor Insulated for 3 years now (slept on it probably 50 nights or so) and I’ve had no leakage issues. Still like the day I got it. BUT, there’s a reason I carry gear tape/repair patches/glue. Easy fix if it occurs.

I had a klymit xwave go flat one me on its first trip out. Got it replaced from them easily and sold it and got a thermarest and haven’t had an issue

@tipi – like your “Circle of Trust” phrase, I remember that from an earlier post. But why does Exped fall out of it but not TAR? Is one blown baffle worse than multiple delaminations?

Other than what the kittens did to the car-camping self-inflatables, I’ve been lucky.

The free replacement for my ORIGINAL 3/4 length Thermarest purchased in 1980 is still going strong after 33 years! The original had a <span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>brass</span> valve that failed. The replacement mattress’ valve was plastic. Yep, I’m a geezer.

Others have used the 3/4 length on and off but I haven’t used it a lot in the past 20 years B/C I had Thermarest Lite and now a Prolite mattresses – which only once got a leak. (However I do always sleep in a floored tent and use a light plastic ground sheet after very carefully checking the ground for sharp objects.)

Now I’m getting an REI Flash Insulated 3 season mattress and pray it will develop no weld leaks, which it is supposedly prone to do.  REI’s customer service assured me they would always stand behind Flash mattresses that leaked at the welds. Good enough for me. I need it for shoulder season use and winter camping to 0 F.

We’ll see…

BTW, Walter, my original Lite mattress had delimitation like yours (replaced by TR) B/C bug repellant and sunscreen from my face went thru the shell and weakened the laminate glue. NOW I SLIDE A T-SHIRT OVER THE TOP OF MY MATTRESSES TO KEEP THEM CLEAN.

My Big Agnes slx q core was used about 10 times before this summer’s big backpacking adventure where it saw about 30 nights of use. Around day 28 it developed a slow leak. I submerged it in Lake Merced and saw bubbles. I used gear tape, all I had, but it did not work. I still have to see if I can fix this now that I am back home.

 REI’s customer service assured me they would always stand behind Flash mattresses that leaked at the welds.

Eric, I had two old REI Stratus pads that failed at the weld.  Even under there new reduced warranty they gave me my money back without issue.

I’ve had five self-inflatable Thermarests that have all been perfect, including my first one which is over 20 years old now. Two others were store displays for years before I started using them. I had to throw another one out because I could never get the smell out after my thru-hike.

I had an Exped downmat fail at the baffle, but their warranty is only 5 years so it wasn’t covered. I had it for maybe 7 years and it wasn’t used very often. Interestingly, I’ve heard of the weld on the baffle failing, but I opened it up and found that it was actually the baffle material that failed. The baffle material was just plastic that did not feel durable.

I had a Sea-to-Summit pillow fail last month at the valve weld. They replaced it without concern and they’ve updated the valve design.

For what it’s worth, on my thru-hike in 2011 I asked people about their mats and I came to the following conclusions:

Big Agnes pads all developed slow leaks

Neoairs were usually fine (first generation at that point) and Thermarest generally replaced them without problem

Expeds failures were not uncommon

I didn’t meet anyone with a failed self-inflatable Thermarest.

I generally take good care of my gear, so it has been distressing to have several pads develop small leaks over the years:  tiny holes in a Big Agnes Hinman and original insulated air mattress (repaired by me) and several pinholes in an Exped Downmat (promptly and graciously repaired by Exped).

What is puzzling is that none of these pads ever actually failed on a trip; I noticed the leakage on the NEXT trip.  Pads are stored at home with valves open and laying flat in the basement between trips.  I don’t see how any of these holes could have happened in the basement.  All I can figure is that on trips small rocks on the tent floor accumulate over several days and then poke holes in the pads.  All holes seem to have been in the body of the pads as opposed to valves or seams, and generally on the underside, so I guess that solves the riddle.  Never any holes in Therm-a-Rest SI pads or Extherm.

I’ve had a Thermarest Xtherm since 2014, +100 nights on it.  No problems at all.  I always bring the patch kit that comes with it, but have not had to use it.  Just waiting for the one trip that I forget the patch kit, then I know what’ll happen.  :)

Thanks Ben for the REI warranty reassurance.

Gotta say, Cascade/Thermarest has replaced two old (one failed valve and one delaminate) mattresses for me without any problem. Send the old one to them and get a new version. Perhaps REI will equal that level of customer service.

I looked at BA insulated mattress reviews and almost to a person they stated that BA would NOT keep them warm enough v.s. BA’s stated R values.