Sleep Number bed question

[beemerphile1]

I have seen many glowing reports among RVers for the Sleep Number beds. Consumer Reports magazine also rates them very high.

My primary question is how do the air bladders do with changes in elevation while traveling? I wouldn't want an expensive mattress to self destruct when going over a mountain pass.

Any other comments good or bad about the Sleep Number beds would be appreciated.

[pnichols]

For camping without hookups, it also takes charged up batteries and an inverter to re-inflate.

[paulcardoza]

BINGO! Right answer!

timmac wrote:
If your not at max pressure on the air bed than you will be fine at high elevations, its not going to build that much pressure as many think it will..

[wnjj]

lanerd wrote:
All it takes is a couple of minutes to deflate and re inflate.

It also takes the remembering part. 😉


How difficult would it be to put a pressure relief valve in the system? One set to a pressure lower than the failure pressure of the mattress would make sense.

[timmac]

If your not at max pressure on the air bed than you will be fine at high elevations, its not going to build that much pressure as many think it will..

[eichacsj]

You should consider this air bed Natural Form (previously SAT bed). I am not a fan of sleep number and won't hi-jack the thread with that. I will say that this matress breaths, it does not pump air (pressurize the tubes), goes from very soft to very hard, also it is the only bed brand that you can get with a prescription. We have the Garden Sleep.

The down side is they are expensive.

[PawPaw_n_Gram]

Yes, the air pressure in the bladders changes with elevation. Normally if our elevation changes over 6-800 feet between stops, we adjust the pressure.

The design of the system doesn't allow bleeder relief valves, so a person has to be wary when traveling in mountainous territory. As mentioned above, it is very easy to get in the routine of lowering pressure as part of the pack up process, and resetting pressure after setup.

My wife and I prefer different firmness levels. We had our Sleep Number for about 6 years before we went full-time, and moved it into the trailer. When the rig was in the shop and we were staying with my daughter, we took it to her house.

One of the very best purchases I ever made.

[CA_Traveler]

Our SN is actually a RV variant and you would think that it would release excessive air pressure with altitude change, but maybe not.

We normally deflate but forgot one time going from 1200' to 7000' and one chamber leaked. SN sent a new chamber to the local UPS store. Several years earlier one of 2 hardwired remotes stopped working and SN sent a new pump with a single wireless remote. Both of these items were pro rated under warranty.

[Michelle_S]

Agree, few years ago went we went West, we just lowered the pressure before leaving in the morning, and re-inflating that evening when we arrived. Like said only takes a minute or two.
BTW our SN is now is in it's third unit.

[Cummins12V98]

Have owned ours at least 10 years, love it! Just remember to lower the pressure if you are traveling to higher elevations than you are at.

[lanerd]

When we had ours on our previous motor home, it all depended upon where we were going. If we were going to travel where we would be making large difference in altitudes, we would just deflate the bags to about half. I'm not really sure if it would have made any difference if we had not, but due to the cost of replacing the mattress, we just never took the chance.

All it takes is a couple of minutes to deflate and re inflate.

Our new motor home came with a 10" foam mattress and we like it even better than the SN....so much so we replaced our SN at home with a foam.

Ron