Who had or now has a water-bed?

Never did. Never will. My friend’s mom had one and she had the heat turned up on the water. You’d lie down and sweat and it was very cozy, but I think I’d not be able to watch TV on that bed without passing out.

I inherited my brother’s (along with his bedroom) when he went to college. They worked well in our house because my father didn’t believe in heating a whole house while people were sleeping… so if your room wasn’t over the wood-burning stove, then you really wanted a waterbed to stay warm.

I haven’t heard of anyone using them since the 80s.

Having slept in one once, it holds no desire to own one. A housemate bought one (this was ~15 years ago) and loved it. As the homeowner, I was always afraid that it might spring a leak.

I had one the whole 10 years of my first marriage, from 1981–1991. I didn’t have one the next 10 years. Then, when Rick moved in, in 2002, he brought his in. It has a thick quilted mattress cover over it, and we added a feather mattress over that. It’s heated and it’s like sleeping on a cloud. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

In the summer you unplug it and the circulating water keeps you cool, at the perfect temperature.

@Pied_Pfeffer Sleeping directly on the mattress, even with a fitted sheet under you, isn’t so splendid. If you add the padding, it’s just heaven. It also helps if it has baffles so you don’t get tossed by waves every time the person next to you turns over.

@jca Many people make the mistake of making giant adjustments to the heat. Like, you feel too cold you crank the bed up. I learned that you turn it just till the light clicks on, then back it off a bit until the light turns off, then you know right where you are. Then ease it back up just a smidgen until the turns on again. It’ll be perfect after a while.
It takes a good 12 hours for the heat to circulate through the bed evenly, so it isn’t a quick heat thing. You learn to anticipate a day or so ahead of time.

This was an old lady and so she probably liked it nice and toasty. It felt good at the beginning but then you’d lay there and roast hahaha.

Yeah. It does feel great at first, especially if it’s really cold in the room, and then it just seeps through you until you’re soaked in sweat. Then you throw off the covers and the upside of you is freezing and the bottom side of you is sweating. That’s no fun. :(

I had one in college and for the first few years of marriage. The water was kept “slightly warm”. We put a 2 inch foam topper and a mattress pad on top. It was fun.

In college I had a king size one on the floor. One day in preparation for a hot date I bought a block of dry ice and put pieces of it into a couple of water buckets. The clouds covered the floor. It looked great when I opened the door to my room and they wafted up. Of course it was unsafe and needed to be aired out to prevent suffocation, but it sure looked cool! .

1977. It was done with and gone before 79.

I am surprised so many on here had them!
I always wanted to “get lucky” on one of them
but never got the chance! I bet the rocking
motion comes in handy!

Not particularly MooCows. It throws off the rhythm. Kinda like jumping on one of those moon walk things with a bunch of other kids.

Well, @LuckyGuy, did it work for the hot date?

Wish I had known @luckyguy back then.

“One day in preparation for a hot date I bought a block of dry ice…” is my new favorite sentence opener.

^^^ yup!!

I don’t know of anyone still using a waterbed, but I can attest that there are still a lot of frames out there. Most with traditional mattresses in some fashion, unless the waterbed frame comes straight from storage.
At the auction we can’t even get people to haul them away for the lumber.

Don’t show this to @LuckyGuy!

I have it on good authority that I popped my parents’ waterbed in roughly 1989.

My husband (boyfriend at the time) had one when I moved in. I hated it. I declared that I didn’t want the bed to follow me around. There was a wave effect whenever either of us moved. Also there was a great deal of agitation every time a cat jumped on it. And it was a pain to make up.

If the heat got turned off somehow, it was a clammy, shivery horror.

After about three years, he sold it and we bought a conventional bed. This was probably in about 1980. I’ve never been sorry.

Yes, unbaffled beds are a pain, for sure. With our bed I can’t feel it much at all when he moves or the cat or even the dog jumps up.

I’ve only ever seen one on TV. I would like to lie on one but it’s not on my bucket list

My sister had a waterbed in the 80’s and swore by it. I tried it, and I was not impressed.

I think the insurance companies were raising hell about them, at one time. The liability of all that water if the bed broke, the liability of all that weight if it didn’t.

I’ve had beds break three times. It’s not like The Great Flood. It’s a slow leak. It could be bad if you didn’t catch it early, though.
I had a water bed for my daughter. Her room was upstairs. I was sitting in the living room, very early one morning, trying to wake up to get ready for work.
Suddenly a quiet, “Drip. Drip. Drip.” dawned on me. Coming from the corner of the living room!! I knew instantly what had happened. I was suddenly fully awake, but not to get get ready for work! Yeah, I had to call in late.

The bed that Rick brought in in 2002, broke in April of last year, 2015. It, like the others, was just a pin hole. He got out of bed and stepped in water, so you spring into action!!! Drain the bed, pull the mattress out, get it out of the house.
I slept on the couch, Rick got an air mattress and put it in the frame of the old bed. We didn’t get it replaced until about 2 months ago (for the record, it’s April of 2016 now.)
My son gave us their old waterbed. It’s not quite the same, but it’s better than the cramped couch.
Rick’s was a soft side. Expensive, but the only way to go if you’re going to get a water bed.
What terrified me was pulling the old frame out. We have genuine, bonifide wood floors in the bedroom. After a year of sitting I was just sick about what the floor would look like where the water had seeped under the wood of the frame.

To my surprise…it was perfectly fine.

I forgot to mention I had small lamps with night lights sitting on the floor on both sides of the bed. They lit up the cloud. It looked great. Like something from a movie. It was so easy to do. I was able to get dry ice from the local ambulance service.

As for whether it worked or not I will not say. Right to privacy laws prohibit any public disclosure of such information.

@MooCows The resonant frequency of the bed wave is slower than the usual activity speed. Movement needed to be slowed down to make the motion of the ocean match the heat of the meat, so to speak.
If you doubled the activity frequency you could stay in synch. The foam top really quieted things down. It was very nice. But that isn’t saying much since engaging in that kind of activity is always nice.

I have a water bed and have had one since about 1977. The one I have now is the second in that time span and it is probably 12 years old.

I do; I have had it and slept in it since 1982. Love it.

I have never fooled around on one and never could envision it. WIth it moving around like jelly and no “cushion for the pushin” it doesn’t seem like it would work well.

@LuckyGuy got laaid! LuckyGuy got laaid! Ha ha ha ha ha HA!

Yep. I confess. I did it at least twice – and have two kids that look like me as proof.
I enjoyed it both times and might even do it again sometime. :-)

LOL!!

Both of my sons are in their 30’s and married and that is still what I tell them.

LOL!