Question from Midwest Mom
We have a vinyl waterbed (Somma) which consists of vinyl tubes filled with water, in a large plastic tray, covered with a vinyl covering, with a foam that fits over the tubes, sitting on a box spring. It is about 20 years old, and was my husband’s prior to our marriage. I don’t like the smell of vinyl and this vinyl smells like vinyl notebooks (which is a smell that is nauseating to me). I didn’t notice the vinyl smell coming from the waterbed until recently when we got a wool mattress topper and placed it on top of the waterbed mattress. We were flipping the wool topper and I noticed the strong smell of vinyl right there between the topper and the mattress.
Apparently for years we have been smelling this strong vinyl offgassing (didn’t notice it though until the topper sat on top of it), including my small children who slept in the bed with us many times over the years. I want to take the vinyl tubes and mattress which cover them off and place our topper over the box springs because I now know this really offgasses even after 20 years. My husband loves the bed and won’t hear of it. Until one of our children grows out and vacates a bedroom that I can move my husband’s bed into (I will be saving for an entire wool bed and should have enough by then), it sounds like I am stuck with this sickening vinyl bed.
How toxic is this? I don’t want to sleep on this another 3 years, but really have no choice. We haven’t saved for the entire wool bed yet, and he wants to keep the Somma waterbed for his entire life. (When he bought it they told him he would not ever need to purchase another, that this will last forever.) Is there anything that I can place under the wool topper that would be a barrier like one of those mylar space blankets?
Thank you for your help.
Debra’s Answer
Yes, a mylar space blanket would help, but every part of the bed would need to be wrapped, not just the mattress.
The problem with vinyl is that is contains and outgasses pthalates. They are added to hard polyvinyl chloride (PVC) to soften it into flexible vinyl. They are not covalently bound to the plastic matrix and therefore easily outgas. You might tell your husband that according to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, DEHP (the most widely used pthalate) “has been shown to…reduce testosterone” and “commonly used phthalates may undervirilize humans.” Perhaps he’ll think twice about keeping his vinyl bed.
I was told by a doctor to avoid vinyl PVC as they know it causes thyroid cancer. I have owned the sleep number bed for many years that has an extremely strong odor (not vinyl) that has never left. The aluminum space blanket stained the foam layer I placed it on and tore from the weight of sleeping on it. Debra helped greatly suggesting the carbon blanket from Nirvanna Safe Haven. I bought 2 panels of carbon felt. It instructs to not sit on, but I placed them under the zipper cover and they stayed intact. I use to sleep on the vinyl air mattress and I have thyroid nodules now.
The old water tubes leaked after many years. I bought new ones, but they stink like smell.
Is there anything that the tubes can be coated with that will contain the stink but not damage the tubes? Mabye some kind of liquid wax? I am hesitatnt to use things at random that might weaken the tubes.
COMMENT FROM DEBRA:
If you can wrap tape around these pipes, wrap them with aluminum foil tape, available at all home improvement stores.