Air Mattress ?
Anyone use an air mattress in their camper? I am looking at trying one. The OEM one in our AF camper is flat as a pancake I cant believe that they would put such a piece of junk in their campers. Shou...
Forum Discussion
Thorin wrote:tplife wrote:
This is due to the heat-sink effect of thermo-negative hollow air mattresses. They are only for use in heated enclosures, because they exchange heat to be the same temp as outside air, so if you're sleeping on them, they're working 24/7 to suck the warmth out of you. A cellular foam mattress would need to be 5.0 R-value or better to overcome this, while a hollow air mattress (or cot) is measured at a negative 0.75.
But that doesn't mean there is no way no counter that. As long as there is no heat exchange between you body and the mattress you should be alright. Any memory foam topper would do the trick. ***Link Removed*** about how memory foam reflects your body heat back to you. Even though he's talking about back pain, it's still about keeping warm too.
The only way to counter the effect is to heat the air around the mattress. Foil under and pads over still allow heat transfer. The memory foam will transfer heat down to the air mattress at a faster rate than it retains heat up. The reason is that the pad/sleeper/mattress are reaching temperature equilibration. They will stop when all are the same temp. This is why air mattresses are only intended for use inside a heated enclosure, and why they don't mention the negative 0.75 R-value at time of sale. A trip to the local UFO or commercial foam outlet will show just how many varieties of this "rises like bread" product is available in for firmness levels and covering options.
