Air Mattress for bunkends

[monkeywrencher]

I did a little searching for some answers to this question but couldn't find what I was looking for.

Has anyone tried putting an air mattress under the bunk mattresses?  We have heated mattresses and I do not want to put anything over them since this defeats the purpose of the heated mattress we paid extra for.  I am a little concerned about the weight of a memory foam mattress as well as the thickness and definitely the expense.  Hearing what people have spent on memory foam I am pretty much completely against that idea.  I am looking for some way to stop my butt from bottoming out when I sleep.  It doesn't need to be fancy and it doesn't need to be expensive.  If we camped every weekend it might be different.

So, what about the air mattress idea?  Does it work?  I suspect that there may be a size problem between your average air mattress and the bunk ends.  Is this a big problem or something that can be overcome?  Other ideas?

[hosh]

We have an inexpensive memory foam on top of our standard Starcraft foam mattresses. An air mattress might be too thick to store under your heated mattresses. Closed cell foams are better insulators, but less flexible. Open cell foam is a poor insulator, but more comfortable. Alps Mountaineering makes some less expensive "Thermarest" like self inflating foam pads, up to 3" thick. Egg crate foam is pretty good, but seems "lumpy" to me.

Look at Wally World for an inexpensive memory foam, comfortable, warm and pretty compact.

[MicroCamper]

We used a queen size "slimline" air mattress under the foam mattress in our camper for quite a while.  It worked OK.  I never had problems storing it under the mattress because it deflates to almost nothing.  The biggest problem that we had was that the two mattresses would never stay stacked neatly on top of each other.  Every morning I had to align them again, and a velour top air mattress didn't help.  If you can find a way to keep them from sliding on each other, it would probably be a good solution.

We replaced ours with a La-Z-Boy Slumber-Air mattress and we use a Sunbeam heated mattress pad (Wal-Mart) when it's cold.  The Slumber-Air is a 4" inner-spring mattress with a pocket in the top for a 4" air mattress that's under a quilted top.  When inflated, it looks like something you would have on your bed at home.  Deflated, it's barely over 4" tall.  Since our "bunk end" folds over instead of sliding in, I have to tie the mattress to the bunk so it won't fall, but it's well worth the price and minor additional hassle.

[Between Trips]

I once tried air beds in my Cabana hybrid. Figured I could save a lot of the hassle fumbling around with the removable mattresses. It worked alright for a while, but we eventually went back to the mattresses.

We used egg crate foam in our Starmaster popup and later in our Spree TT. Last summer we found a good deal at Costco on a Memory Foam topper for our front queen bed. Much more comfortable.

[jeff1890]

+1 for wally world. They have some inexpensive mattress toppers that will work well under your matresses. For my old pup I replaced the old mattresses with a 4 in topper that was 1.5 9in memory and 2.5in standard. They worked graet. and were about a total mof $180. they do have cheaper ones.

[SMITHRazorback]

we actually take one matress and put it on the other, and use the empty bunk end as a "closet". works for us since there is only 2 of us camping.   

 

[Cheyenne06]

Has anyone tried putting an air mattress under the bunk mattresses? 

Tried it briefly but couldn't get it to work. Put a queen air mattress under a Coleman/Fleetwood "king" (70x77) mattress. The queen was not quite big enough but I knew that - this was a proof of concept test. No matter how little or how much air I put into the air mattress the regular mattress on top was totally unstable and tilting and moving all over. If you tried to crawl into bed, the opposite mattress corner would poke up high in the air and it was difficult just crawling around. If someone else was laying on the same bed and you turned over or moved, there was crazy motion of the mattress.  The main mattress just distributed its weight over the entire air mattress and you kind of floated around on top like an out of control air hockey puck. Maybe others have gotten this arrangement to work, but we couldn't.

Cheap thin egg crate on top makes a significant improvement.  Obviously you can do better with thicker or memory foam, but for us it make a lot more difference than one would have guessed. YMMV.

[MicroCamper]

A tight fitted sheet helps keep the two mattresses together, but they still try to go their own way. It's not the best solution.

[1994Arcadia]

In our Coleman I use a double 4 inch air matress on top of the foam. Fitted sheet and made up like a bed at home. The foam on the bottom insulates and blankets keep me warm. Everything stays in place and I sleep good.

[Edsland]

 [pr-ON]We use an air mattress on top our bunk mattress with fitted queen sheets. Nothing moves, you can make it hard or softer. My wife isn't a late sleeper but on one trip last year she sleepet 12 hours. It's still our running joke when we say we need a camping trip. Now only if our snow would melt we could try and top it. 

[miataman]

^^^ that's what we are trying on the HTT this year.  Dual chamber, so each side is individually adjustable.  We probably will continue to use the expensive 2" memory topper we already had. Goal is to eliminate the cheap stock mattress altogether.

Back when we had the popup, it was a world of difference between the 1.5" egg shell cheap topper and the 2" quality high density memory foam (I believe it weighs 26 lbs for the queen).  Well worth the investment to us.  Only my opinion, but I believe we need a memory foam product in the 5 to 6 oz per square foot per inch thickness to be much support and improvement.

Originally, as the original mattress is so bad, I was considering getting a new mattress made.  We have an upholstery shop in nearby South Bend, that I one went to 25 years ago, and they are still in business!  But the air mattress sounds like it may work better all around, for several reasons:  i.e., it is adjustable; a traditional mattress must be split and size/bulk is critical in folding up an HTT bunk end, in order to not put pressure on the door.

Best wishes in finding the solution that works for you.

[MatthewinGA]

This past weekend we rented 2 sleeping pads from REI. This was exactly the experience I was hoping for. The "Camping pad" was 3.5" thick and measured 29" X 78"; which was perfect for our 60" X 80" mattress. We tossed the useless memory foam and egg crate on the other bunk and slept with the pads under our (OE) heated mattress. We finally got some good restful pain free nights of sleep. We highly recommend these pads for others having "bottoming out" syndrome.

Anyone want to buy some foam and egg crate?

[Waterdoctor]

It's usually just my wife and I camping (although the 4 yo grandson comes along occasionally). Our 1st camping trip we tried to use the pup mattress and got no sleep at all. Bought a standard queen air mattress and put it on top of the pup mattress. That worked very well for us, but the bed was really high and difficult to get in to. Since the pup mattress foam was pretty well shot, I just pulled it out of the cover and disposed of it, then put the cover down on the bunk platform and the air mattress goes on top. If we're camping where the night time temps are going to be too chilly for us, we put a heavy weight sleeping bag (rated for about 20F, canvass outer shell and flannel liner, zipped open) and use those fitted air matress sheets. The sleeping bag doesn't move on top of the air mattress and the thick sleeping bag gives that plushiness we like. We make the bed up just like we would at home, except we use another sleeping bag on top of the top sheet and blanket as a quilt. This has worked very well for us, but still doesn't address your question of the air mattress on top of the heated pup mattress. IMHO, as mentioned earlier, I don't see how that would work very well, for the reasons listed previously.

I know this isn't much help in answering your original question, it's what works for us.
Steve 

[94-D2]

I use three thermarest self inflating camp pads.  Two 25x77x3" and one 72x70.  Works like a charm, comfy and adjustable to desired firmness.

J

[ghacker]

I use three thermarest self inflating camp pads.  Two 25x77x3" and one 72x70.  Works like a charm, comfy and adjustable to desired firmness.

Ditto, it's the best solution but also the most expensive one. Sounds like it wouldn't work for you.