We are considering buying a new travel trailer. We have heard the blow up beds in the couches are not any good. If you have one what are your thoughts? I would appreciate any comments.

We have one and are quite happy with it. For added comfort we put on a topper and people who have slept on it say it is quite comfortable.

Blow up beds may be good for terrorist, so be careful. You may be more interested in inflatable beds. On the forums, all you hear are the negative things. I think they are a decent idea, but they can get punctured. I prefer a tri fold bed, if available, and use a decent memory foam topper. But, if the choices were a bi fold bed or an inflatable, I would pick the inflatable.

The blow-up bed on my Outback couch is awful! The couch itself (folded out to a bed) is too short and the both ends of the blow up mattress overhang the support. It works OK for two small children (my grand daughters slept on it, and worked great for them). But my wife and I tried it and we both hated it. The support under the mattress is uneven also. Feet end is higher than the head end with a big bump in the middle.NOW.... when we put the blow up mattress on the floor, it was pretty good! But the couch as a bed .. absolutely stinks. It's great for a couch, but not a bed!

Inflatable beds have always been unique to use and have their own problems. We used inflatable tent beds for many years back in the day. These air mattresses would slip into the portable bed frames and make a real nice queen size sleeping bed up off the tent floors. All would fold up into a neat roll around tote on wheels.The biggest problem we would have was always with the changing temperatures and resulting air pressures. We would start out the evening with a real nice firm inflated bed bed and usually around 3-4AM the outside air pressure would drastically change resulting in us sinking into the once very firm inflatable bed.I'm sure those built-in problems still exist.We spent many of very comfortable tent bed camping nights back in the 60s and 70s using the inflatable mattresses....Roy Ken

Yust remember to deflate the inflatable mattres when going over high elevation passes so that it will really not blow up.navegator

Blow up beds in couch | Good Sam Community

19 Replies

ol_Bombero-JC
Explorer
Sep 13, 2014
Illini wrote:
We are considering buying a new travel trailer. We have heard the blow up beds in the couches are not any good. If you have one what are your thoughts? I would appreciate any comments.

Who is going to sleep on whatever "spare" bed you have..:@

Adults? - Kids?

How often?

My RV couch is in my sticks and bricks family room.
Lots more room in the 5th.
It went away - along with the factory recliners.
Two much nicer (and more comfortable) recliners are the "soft furniture" now.

*If* the grandkid comes along - he can "rough it" on an inflatable bed on the floor..;)

(And I'll spin some yarns about the 'old days' when I was a kid, and the RV was a tent......and we slept in a sleeping bag with -maybe- a one inch pad under it, LOL.)

If someone else needs a place to sit inside, we have the dinette chairs, and/or some comfortable fold-up chairs that we normally use outside.

BTW - if I were to order a new 5th again, if possible, I would do my best to order it w/o any "living room" furniture..;)

~
fj12ryder
Explorer III
Sep 12, 2014
We've had two of the separate blow-up air beds, one we gave to a relative that needed one, and one we still have. These have worked very well for us, hold air with no problem, and have the built-in air pumps so inflating and deflating are a breeze (Har).
shadows4
Nomad
Sep 12, 2014
What about the seperated air mattresses that you can buy? Are they any good? I have been thinking of one of these to just put on the floor in front of the couch. Our hide a bed only makes into a full size bed. Have any of you slept on a full size bed lately? Wife and I had a full size bed when we got married, but we were younger (and smaller) then. LOL

P.S. tegu69 that story is hilarious!!!!!
tegu69
Explorer
Sep 12, 2014
Had some friends meet us at a SP. They were going to set up a tent on our site. I said they should stay in our camper in the a/c on the hide away. The air mattress had never been used. We got everything all set up and went to bed. Early the next morning, I got up and just looked out in the living room. I told my wife, Bob is on the floor and Dar is gone. Maybe she went out to use restroom. After 15 minutes or so, I got to check. The air mattress had deflated and she had slipped down with it and was now in the storage bay under the couch still asleep. Good thing she is only 5ft nothing.
bodyshop_bob
Explorer
Sep 12, 2014
The queen sized airbed pump died in the first 6 months of ownership and we had a little trouble getting our dealer and Jayco to coordinate but finally got a replacement. It worked great for over a year but now the bed has a slow leak we can't find. The dealer told us they had lots of issues with owners trying to inflate or deflate with the pump obstructed which caused it to burn out. My understanding is that Jayco discontinued using airbeds beginning in 2013 but I don't know that for a fact.
Comfort-wise the airbed was a vastly superior product to the old jack-knife deals. Those were and continue to be horribly uncomfortable.
Okie_in_Wyoming
Explorer
Sep 12, 2014
MY DS and his DW says ours is quite comfortable. They said they both slept very well on it. 100 times better than that awful jack-knife type we had before!
shenandoahvalle
Explorer
Sep 12, 2014
When my mother camps with us she sleeps on the inflatable mattress in our Jayco...she says it is very comfortable.
mosseater
Explorer II
Sep 12, 2014
We've had a Flair air hide-a-bed for 6 years since new and we're very happy with it. Use it a lot when Mom comes along. The only complaint I have is the rubbery scrootchie sound it makes when moving around. Very comfy to sleep on.

Just beware that depending on the configuration of your unit, you may have to partially disassemble the be to get it through the door. I had to. Not a huge deal, just another pain in the neck.
traveylin
Explorer
Sep 11, 2014
Planning to remove the inflate bed/couch in our class a this winter. The junk to be removed has the following issues.
The pleather surface is crumbling
It is to low to get out of.
The bed takes up to much room, blocks sink access
To much work to set up.

Will build a custom bed that simply folds out with storage space below using seat cushions for mattress.

Pops
FlatBroke
Explorer II
Sep 11, 2014
Got rid of the heavy hida bed and put in a conventnal love seat. Air matress on floor or list of local motels is available as needed. List of motels is preferable for us.