Camping Pad Repair

A repair kit is one of the essential equipment when you're venturing outdoors. Unless you're using a foam pad, your camping pad is susceptible to punctures, tears and other malfunctions. Repairs need to be done sooner or later even when you're really careful.

Large holes or big tears in your self-inflating pad or air mat are easy to spot. All you need to do is visually inspect you pad or listen and feel for the escaping air.

When you have a small puncture, finding where it leaks is not as easy. You may not even realize that you have a leaking pad until the condition worsens to the point that you have to re-inflate every two hours or so. At least that's when I started to suspect the first time my own camping pad leaked.

A popular way of locating small punctures is by using soap and water. You only need a little bit of soap mixed with water. Spread the soap/water mixture over a fully inflated pad. Bubbles should be visible at the point of the leak. If you don't have soap, you can just use water but it's not as easy because water alone flows off the pad too quickly. If you're at home, immerse it in the bathtub for convenience.

Another way to locate the hole is by filling the pad with some air and then rolling up half of it, placing pressure and then pouring water or water/soap mixture over the remaining portion, looking out for air bubbles. Repeat until the leak is found.

After you've found the hole, draw a circle around it with a marker pen so that you can easily find it again after you've rinsed off the soap. Make sure the pad is dry before you start to repair.

When making a field repair on your camping pad, you need to able to use it almost immediately or else it will be a long and uncomfortable night.

The duct tape is a wonderful item that should be in every backpacker's pack. It can be used on your feet to prevent blisters, as a first aid item to support broken bones, etc and to fix tents, sleeping bags and pads among many other uses.

To repair a leak, cut a patch of duct tape to a size that is at least one fourth of an inch bigger than the hole itself. It is recommended that the duct tape should only be used as a last resort.

When you use a seam sealer to cover a hole, it takes at least 24 hours for the seam sealer to cure properly. To make the seam sealer cure faster, you can mix it with a few drops of water. Seam sealers like Seam Grip® from McNett cure faster when wet.

Seam Grip® with added water will cure in 2 hours but if you can't wait that long, you can wait 30 minutes and then apply a patch from a repair kit or duct tape over the hole. The patch should extend at least half an inch beyond the seam sealer. Make sure you press the patch firmly onto the pad. If you leave the patch for at least 3 days, you'll have a permanently sealed hole underneath.

For big tears, some people like to stitch their inflatable camping pads and apply seam sealer to cover the small holes as a result of the stitching.

If it's a pinhole-leak, you can simply use seam sealer to cover it up. Before applying the seam sealer, the camping pad should be deflated and if it's a self-inflating pad, the valve should be closed.

Once you've applied the seam sealer, inflate the pad to draw the seam sealer into the pinhole which will result in a long-lasting seal. You need to allow the pad to dry for at least 24 hours before using it.

If you find that the valves are leaking, the first thing you should do is the area around the valve. Once it is clean and dry, you can apply seam sealer and leave it to stand upright overnight. The seam sealer will seal small holes and leaks in the nozzle area.

Thermarest, Big Agnes, REI and Pacific Outdoor Equipment all have their own repair kits but using them for their respective camping pads is not a requirement.  McNett is probably one of the most popular option when it comes to repair kits.