Sunday, January 13, 2013

The Never Ending Fight Against "DAMP"

I've read about Cruisers having issues with condensation underneath their mattresses and wondered what that was all about...

Click the illustration to purchase **
This is something I've never experienced before.  I've been using Tea Tree oil to fight mildew on the boat and had begun to have sinister thoughts that we could be sleeping upon a mildewey mess.  Some stones are better left unturned it seems... at least if you don't want to spend any money!

A couple of weeks ago, we took our queen mattress outside onto our sunny deck and stripped off the cover.  What we found beneath it wasn't as horrifying as the story told in my imagination, but there was obviously an issue to be rectified.  I found that there was a big wet spot underneath where I sleep.  (no comments here from the peanut gallery!)  

I sprung into action and consulted some wise sailing women with whom I've recently become acquainted and found that the more common solution was a product called HyperVent.  It took me a week or so to talk Bruce into it but we did some measuring and placed our order for 16 feet of four ft wide HyperVent from Defender.  I did some pricing around and found them to be the best.

This weekend, we turned our cabins upside down and installed it.  It took me a while to figure out how to wrangle the stuff into the aft cabin and situate it so that I could measure and cut the pieces into the appropriate length.
But once I got going it was pretty simple.  I ended up dulling Bruce's favorite fillet knife as it provided me with the maneuverability to make some curved cuts to fit the piece to the bed's platform.  I was even able to do it without injuring myself!
Next we did the v-berth.  This meant that everything that was stored in there had to be removed... Happily we expected no visitors!  I couldn't take the v-berth mattress outside in the sun for it's Tea Tree treatment so we had to make due with propping it up in the salon and running the dehumidifier to dry the Tea Tree solution out.
I went to work piecing the HyperVent together.  It was amazing how well it covered the space we had and how little we had leftover.  I got it just right with my pre-order measurements!  Once the mattress was dry, we put a vinyl cover on it before replacing the zipper cover.  It all smells nice and newly clean and I'm excited to have a cozy place to keep our next guests!
**I have no affiliation with HyperVent or Defender Industries.  I am receiving no compensation for this endorsement.

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