Waterbed Sealant

Waterbeds may not be as popular as they once were, but they are still darn comfortable.

Recently I had the sad experience of seeing a waterbed put down after one too many leaks. You can patch them but you are only biding your time.

It occurred to me that there could be a market for some type of waterbed sealant, similar to the sealant you can spray into car tires.

Such a product would be a mixture of two chemicals. One chemical would be heavier than water and the other would need to be lighter. When added to the water in the waterbed, one of the chemicals would separate to the bottom and the other would separate to the top. This way one of the chemicals could deal with leaks in the top half and the other would deal with leaks in the bottom half.

Ultimately you would want a chemical that when exposed to oxygen would begin to polymerize. As long as the chemical was in the bed it would remain in liquid form. But if it began to seep out through a leak it would begin to turn into a plasticy goo. The hope would be that it would allow the bed to self seal.

Of course with larger leaks it might not be able to do the job. However, if the chemical was some other color (but one that could wash out of fabric easy) it might make it easier to spot where the leak is to allow for more traditional patching to be done easier.

Now there may be some difficulties finding or designing a chemical that would have the necessary properties. A market for this product might also not really exist. And even if the market is there, the product would have to work well enough to encourage people to actually buy it. In the end though, waterbeds are nice, but it sucks when the leak.