A Waterbedtime Story by Irvin Saathoff

There was a time back in the 1980s when it seemed like there was a brick & mortar waterbed retail shop on every street corner. Having only just begun in earnest after the modern day waterbed was patented in 1971, and as none of the nationwide retailers like Sears and Montgomery Ward who tried selling waterbeds experienced much success, it was a multitude of smaller regional retail operations that drove industry growth.

With waterbed sales peaking at 22% of the domestic mattress industry in 1987*, a number of retailers had grown quite rapidly with multiple locations. As such one anomaly which arose was the advent of 3 different retailers in California all with multiple locations that called their retail operations The Bedroom. So for those wholesalers and manufacturers who might have been supplying all 3 it became necessary to identify them by their regional appellations namely The Bedroom San Diego, The Bedroom Orange County and The Bedroom Bay Area.

Albeit none of the aforementioned operations are still in business, as they disappeared along with a number of other retailers when waterbed popularity waned, a significant number of these operations still exist today having diversified their mattress offerings or transitioned into the conventional furniture business. Unfortunately for the multitude of people who still really love waterbeds and continue to sleep on them today, since the great majority of former waterbed retailers have forsaken their heritage, brick & mortar waterbed retailers have become much harder to find.

So for those who like to try before they buy, traveling hundreds of miles to experience the latest waterbed offerings is the new norm. Fortunately a few retailers who have continued to promote the benefits of fluid suspension sleep are located in desirable locations that can make destination shopping for waterbeds downright enjoyable. One such operation is City Furniture based out of Florida, originally founded as Waterbed City back in the 1970’s. With multiple locations across the southeast, City Furniture features the Afloat softside system. 

Meanwhile boutique destinations have become popular in Colorado with 2 InnoMax showrooms in desirable locations. The retro factory showroom in Denver is conveniently situated on I70 between the International Airport and the Rocky Mountain summit corridor. Or if you may be headed to Estes Park, Jackson Hole or Yellowstone, the trendy InnoMax Loveland/Fort Collins showroom on I25 North might suite your fancy. In any case Colorado being a destination for all seasons, waterbed lovers can be found year round test resting the latest innovations in fluid sleep at InnoMax.  Featuring a wide selection of hardside and softside waterbeds with an extensive variety of flotation sleep support options, many a destination waterbed shopper make a day of it. As winter and summer sports or relaxing in the mountains is never out of season, an InnoMax sleep consultant will be happy to share information on wining & dining and accommodation options nearby.

In conclusion, though click & order waterbeds can certainly be found online these days, if you are one of those people who likes to try things before you buy, brick & mortar destination waterbed shopping may be right for you.  Try an online search for a waterbed store in your state, you may have to drive a bit but it may be well worth it.

Note: As a manufacturer producing all waterbed components including waterbed chambers, liners, heaters, frames and accessories required for both hardside & softside mattresses, InnoMax also maintains a nationwide dealer network. So if you are interested in connecting with a dealer in Tampa, Atlanta, Nashville, Toledo, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Yonkers, Saint Louis, Salt Lake City, Houston, Minneapolis, Des Moines, Pittsburgh, Louisville, Ft Lauderdale, Chicago or elsewhere or are interested in becoming a dealer in the multi-million dollar waterbed industry you may also connect with the InnoMax Wholesale Department by calling 1-800-INNOMAX or online at https://www.innomax.com/.

Contributing author for this edition has been specialty sleep veteran Irvin Saathoff. Check back in with the next issue when Waterbedtime Story shares yet another perspective. Meanwhile you may connect with InnoMax Corporation anytime at Sleep@InnoMax.com.

Footnote Citation: *Allen Salkin “For Water Bed Holdout, California Dreaming”

The post Destination Shopping for Waterbeds – November 18, 2022 appeared first on InnoMax.

In 1871, a waterbed was in use in Elmira, New York, for “invalids”. It was briefly mentioned by Mark Twain in his article “A New Beecher Church“, which was published in The New York Times on 23 July 1871. Twain wrote: “In the infirmary will be kept one or two water-beds (for invalids whose pains will not allow them to be on a less yielding substance) and half a dozen reclining invalid-chairs on wheels. The water-beds and invalid-chairs at present belonging to the church are always in demand, and never out of service”.

So while the pressure relieving benefits for burn patients and bed ridden invalids subject to bed sores have been known for quite some time, it wasn’t until after waterbeds became popular for residential use in the early 1970s that a significant amount of research on the health benefits relative to the general public was conducted. Being rather young and of the mind sleep was a necessary inconvenience at that time, it wasn’t until I’d aged a bit that I came to appreciate why so many people were so interested in researching the health benefits of sleep.

As it is now well documented that quality sleep can help rejuvenate the body while bolstering immune system and mental acuity, the quest has now become maximizing quality sleep. Things have certainly evolved for me on that front as now I find myself checking my sleep monitoring smart watch every morning to see how well I slept. And albeit not scientific, my personal observation is that my score goes way down if I’m tossing and turning which often happens when traveling and trying to sleep on uncomfortable mattresses.

 

Medical Waterbed advertisement from India

Given any force greater than 32mm/Hg applied to the human body will cause a restriction of the capillaries resulting in diminished blood flow, and that during a normal night of sleep an average person attempting to sleep on a too firm or too soft mattress may change positions 60-80 times due to impaired blood flow, it makes sense the elimination of pressure points would reduce tossing and turning for a deeper more restful sleep. The following pressure mapping comparison, circa 2000, illustrates how a waterbed distributes support more evenly too facilitate keeping pressure points below 30 mm/Hg.
While you can still find Free Flow mattresses for use with hardside box frames reminiscent of the original “modern” waterbed patented in 1971 online, fluid suspension sleep product design and technology has advanced significantly over the past 50 years.

One of the most significant advancements has been the advent of softside waterbeds. While looking like a traditional conventional mattress, softside waterbed mattresses include water chambers instead of innerspring support cores. So in addition to the convenience of using conventional size sheets and bedding, softside waterbeds offer the warmth and comfort of a hardside waterbed, without the hardside rails. And with fluid support, body weight is distributed more evenly over the surface mitigating pressure points to improve your quality of sleep.

The post What did Mark Twain say about Waterbeds? – September 19, 2022 appeared first on InnoMax.

While the health benefits of temperature controlled Waterbeds for arthritis relief and various other maladies were well documented by the 1980’s, it didn’t start out that way. As alluded to in the previous episode, many a ‘modern day Waterbed’ was purchased back in the early 1970’s without a heater. Notice I specified “modern”. This is because, while Waterbeds have a rich history dating back to 600 BCE when Persians would fill goat-skins with water to use as mattresses, ‘modern’ Waterbeds purveyed in the 70’s were generally based on designs conceptualized by Charlie Hall in the late 60’s and for which a Patent was granted him in 1971*.

So while you learned in the last episode my first Waterbed experience in the early 70’s was with a vinyl bladder a high school buddy’s parents had allowed him to fill over a drain in their basement, what I didn’t mention was how outrageously cold the thing was. Albeit not frigid by any stretch, even a body of water like a swimming pool can feel extremely cold at 70 degrees/room temperature. As such while a 70 degree ambient room air temp works well to moderate our 98.6 body and 85 degree skin temps, being submerged in 70 degree water or laying on a 70 degree Waterbed works like a giant heat sink and can get uncomfortably cold. This likely had some bearing on Charlie including a number of heater concepts in his 1970 patent application some of which are shown here.

Being impractical for 20th Century citizenry to lay their Waterbeds in the sun to warm up during the day, as 6th Century BCE Persians did, by the late 1970’s a cottage industry of Waterbed heater manufacturers had sprung up to accommodate the booming Waterbed industry. So by the early ‘80s it seemed somehow fitting a land in the midnight sun (with considerably less sun in winter), Norway, had become recognized as having more people per capita sleeping on Waterbeds than any other country on the planet. That said, it should be noted that temperature controlled Waterbeds can also provide cooling relief on hot steamy nights.

Another phenomenon going on during this era was the increased popularity of isolation chambers. As the primary objective of this experience is sensory deprivation, like floating in space, a key element is temperature control. And as sleeping in an open tub of salt water is also fairly impractical, Waterbeds offered the next best thing by providing; a) contoured flotation support to eliminate pressure points associated with tossing & turning, and b) a temperature regulated environment so the body isn’t compensating by sweating or shivering to facilitate the deepest most restful sleep.

But wait that’s not all, with the advent of other design innovations like soft thermal barriers and dual Waterbed systems, couples never had to compromise when sleeping in the same bed. In addition to capability of having 2 different flotation modules in the same mattress with variable levels of support, couples could also adjust the temperature of their own side of the bed independently. And as if that isn’t enough, Waterbed designs had also evolved to optionally replace wooden hardside frames with softside frames which offered edge to edge flotation support and used conventional sheets & bedding.

As the oldest surviving US Waterbed heater manufacturer in the industry, Thermal Guardian temperature control systems by InnoMax offer proven reliable performance. And with the largest selection of options including Digital and Analog remote controls in both Full Watt for Hardside Waterbeds and Low Watt for Hybrid Softside Waterbeds, InnoMax offers a Thermal Guardian temperature control system specifically designed for every need.

In conclusion, what’s so hot about Waterbeds is that they are also cool…literally and figuratively!

Contributing author is Irvin Saathoff a Waterbed veteran who has worked in many aspects of the industry from design & product management to retail, wholesale and marketing. Check back in with the next issue when Waterbedtime Story fields the question; What did Mark Twain say about the Medical Benefits of Waterbeds? Meanwhile you can connect with InnoMax Corporation anytime at Sleep@InnoMax.com.

Footnote Citation: *Charles P Hall, Liquid support for human bodies, US Patent US3585356A.

The post What’s So Hot About Waterbeds? – June 10, 2022 appeared first on InnoMax.

Waterbedtime Story

Though having gone from 20% of the US market share in their heyday to a blip not even measured by most mattress surveys today, there are many who would argue Waterbeds never went away.

My first recollection of experiencing a Waterbed was around 1970 after a buddy of mine had bought one from a head shop. At the time being curious high schoolers from Illinois farm country, we would sometimes venture into old town Chicago to check out the hippie scene and head shops which purveyed a variety of goods including posters, black lights, smoking paraphernalia and where one could find a Waterbed mattress for under 20 bucks if you shopped around. As Waterbeds had not necessarily evolved to include a frame or safety liner in those days, not to mention a fill & drain kit, my buddy wisely installed his directly over the basement drain much to his mother’s consternation when it came laundry time.

By 1975 Waterbeds had become much more sophisticated as things like Waterbed frames, safety liners and fill & drain kits had become standard equipment. I know this because, having moved to California and to support my starving artist/college student lifestyle, I had begun moonlighting for an outfit called Naturest Waterbeds in the San Francisco bay area. Sidelining as a Waterbed salesman & service technician worked pretty well for me at the time as I could sell a couple beds after school and then install them after work. Being fairly handy, I could deliver and set up a traditional “Hardside” Waterbed similar the one shown in the following image in less than an hour all by myself.

You may have noticed my use of the word “Hardside”. Although a standard term we’ve been using in the Waterbed industry for nearly a half-century, as of April 2022 I am still am unable to find hardside or hardside waterbed in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Be that as it may, as millions of Hardside frames have been sold over the years, they continue play a major role in driving significant aftermarket sales of Hardside Waterbed mattresses. As such for those who continue to thrive in the aftermarket segment of the industry, Waterbeds have definitely not gone away. And while other segments of the industry have also continued to evolve and thrive including Softside Waterbeds, also not found in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, that’s another story.

And albeit the greatest Waterbed story of all is the enduring love people have for sleeping on water, which has kept the industry afloat, that too is another story. So getting back to the primary topic of Hardsides, until the advent of manufacturers compressing mattresses to UPSable sizes in this millennium, I could not imagine 1 person trying to deliver a King size innerspring to many a quaint Victorian house in the hills of San Francisco I had occasion to visit back in the last millennium. As such mindful of their clientele, Hardside waterbed designers came up with some incredibly versatile designs that still endure today. For example, you don’t have to look very hard to see a Hardside waterbed at core of the following Matrix Wall Bed design.

As components like the pier cabinets on each side and light bridge across the top are all modular, similar to the bookcase, frame, decking and drawer halves of the Hardside core, Wall Bed designs like the Matrix above are able to be delivered and installed into virtually any home. And while clearly viable for use a 9” depth Hardside frame, a Platform frame as picture above is most often used for Softside or conventional mattresses. So, similar to the many Top 100 Retailers who have blended into conventional home furnishings from the oft maligned Waterbed industry, there is veritable a cornucopia of beds flying under the radar which are viable for use with conventional, softside and even Hardside frames.
CLICK HERE to see the Matrix and a variety of other Wall Beds and Hardside Waterbeds.

In conclusion, as a Google search of Hardside Waterbed reveals a great number of businesses including many well respected giants of retail engaged in an industry Merriam-Webster and many a mattress survey pundit apparently don’t know exists, I respectfully submit Waterbeds Did Not Really Ever Go Away.

• Contributing author is Irvin Saathoff, a Waterbed veteran who has worked in all aspects of the industry from design and product management to retail and wholesale marketing. Check back in with the next issue when Waterbedtime Story fields the question; What’s So Hot About Waterbeds? Meanwhile you can connect with InnoMax Corporation anytime at Sleep@InnoMax.com .

The post Did Waterbeds Really Ever Go Away? – April 22, 2022 appeared first on InnoMax.