Industial Sewing & Inflatable Repair

Bounce House Mattress Repair and Replacement

The bounce mattress or floor, is the heart of every inflatable, from bounce houses to combos, slides to games and everything in between. The mattress is the foundation that inflatables are built upon, but it’s also the most abused area of the inflatable due to the extreme and constant usage conditions it must endure. Over time, the mattress can become damaged and in need of repair or replacement, which, in most cases, requires the knowledge and skill of a professional in order to ensure the quality of the repair and the safety of the end users.

Often times for mattress repairs, extra strengthening of the seams is necessary to decrease the likelihood of repeat damage. The strengthening is achieved thru the strategic placement of additional 7″ vinyl strips which are installed using specialized sewing techniques. Furthermore, the bounce mattress must also be sewn together in such a way as to create a flat surface area with a bottom pad that is connected, in the interior, by vinyl or mesh baffle material 24″ to 34″ wide (as a rule depending on the original manufacturer of the inflatables).

The stress factor of a bounce mattress is off the charts. For example, an average weekend rental 15’ x 15′ bounce house, when used as intended, will have an average of (6) six to (8) eight children bouncing continuously on the bounce mattress for between (5) five and (8) eight hours per day of use. Multiply that continued pounding activity by how many rental days that unit is in use over one year and, you’ll quickly realize the potential for damage that the mattress is exposed to such as, the counter-force against the threads holding together the bounce mattress. For this precise reason, we highly recommend that you use a certified and experienced repair facility to perform any repairs on the bounce mattress of an inflatable.

Our facility along with our experienced team of technicians is equipped to handle even the most complex repairs and the largest inflatables. It is always a good idea to research any repair facility you are considering before having them do any repairs to ensure they possess the required equipment, staff and track record to complete your repairs properly and in a timely manner.

Inflatable Modifications and Customizing

Inflatable modification and/or customizing involves very technical and precise calculations & measurements.  full engineering knowledge of the original manufacturing processes. An analogy to this would be like remodeling your living room in your house. You have to analyze the air-conditioning capabilities of the existing home utilities before simply adding living area. The same applies to modifying an inflatable. The blower motor is rated to inflate a bounce house properly. If you add or expand a new area to an inflatable, it will require added blower pressure to maintain proper firmness for example. If the blower motor is undersized then you’ll have a major problem maintaining appropriate air-pressure to keep the inflatable safely pressurized.

Repair Blown and Torn Baffles

What are baffles and what do they do? Baffles are commonly referred to in the industry as the inside “skeleton” of the bounce mattress section of a bouncer or framework of a car dealership gorilla for example. Otherwise known by many manufacturers as “ribs”also. There are numerous ‘baffles’ within a inflatable depending on size. For example, most 15’x15′ bounce houses, moonwalk and bouncers have 5 individual baffles (ribs) connecting the upper and lower portions of the bouncing platform.

When one of these baffles fail, the inflatable becomes pretty much unusable because the section damaged raises and towers above the other ribs like a balloon. As a result, bouncing about on this platform is severely obstructed and, moreover, can cause even more significant damage to the inflatable…. additionally liability concerns should someone incur an injury resulting from tripping over the damaged area.
Baffle failures should be repaired immediately as damage to the inflatable bounce house will increase significantly with more use.

It’s been our experience here at SUPERIOR INFLATABLES, that manufacturers such as Cutting Edge Creation (N-Flatables), Ninja Jump, Moonwalk USA, Magic Jump, Happy Jump, HEC, Ez-Inflatables, Bouncing Angels, Jumpions, Unique Jumpers, Bounceland, Best Jumpers, eInflatables, Ultimate Jumpers, Jingo Jump, Unique World USA, Spacewalk Sales Inc. or Chinese inflatable manufacturers vary in their manufacturing methods, especially when it comes to bouncing mattresses on inflatables. Thus it requires repair technicians with much experience in this area of inflatable repairs to properly repair your baffle or rib damage. A proper baffle or rib repair will significantly extend the life of an older bounce house.

Re-stitch Seams

Initially, the rule of thumb in re-stitching seams on a inflatable requires the sewing technician to re-stitch behind and as close as possible to the original manufactured seam line for a couple of reasons:

(1) inflatables require continuous air flow for proper inflation. Consequently, when a needle perforates the vinyl during manufacturing, a tiny hole created by the puncturing of the vinyl by the sewing machine needle is filled by the thread used to stitch together two pieces of vinyl. Thus air flow loss is restricted by the thread sealing the hole. However, when the thread fails and the two pieces of vinyl require re-stitching, and the vinyl is stitched by creating another continuous sewing line, you now have a seam of needle holes that are not sealed by thread. Therefore, the bounce house has a line of punctured holes from original manufacturing where air loss is prevalent. This is precisely the reason for sewing the vinyl together with a stitch line behind the original manufactured stitch line. The original manufacturing stitch line with exposed air holes is now on the outside of the new stitch line, and is sealed by the new stitch line barrier.

(2) There are numerous so-called inflatable repair shops, that will attempt to re-stitch a failed seam along the same original manufacturer stitch line. This will not hold-up over the long-haul because when you stitch over an existing stitch line, you are stitching unto an area of the vinyl that has been compromised and severely weakened by previous original stitching. THIS TYPE OF REPAIR WILL ULTIMATELY FAIL AGAIN … sooner rather than later. You’ll undoubtedly have your inflatable in the shop for more repairs in the same area again! This can be avoided by simply using wise judgment in selecting a qualified repair company. SUPERIOR INFLATABLES is a company with extensive repair experience as can be discerned by the above stitching explanation.

Repair Torn vinyl

Repairing of torn vinyl in many cases requires replacement of a section of vinyl that extends from seam to seam (aka panel replacement). Otherwise you’ll be resorting to patch work which although works, a noticeable and unsightly patched section will be visible to your customer’s. This does not bode well for product quality and aesthetic beauty. No one wants to rent equipment that looks like a patch work quilt. You’ll could lose your repeat business.

The method for repairing torn vinyl is a relatively simple procedure requiring replacement of a particular panel of damaged vinyl at the seams. Repairing torn vinyl using this method returns your inflatable bounce house to its original form. Renters will not notice that your inflatable has been repaired.
Repair or Add Blower Intake tubes

Blower intake tubes are those 8′ round tubes coming from your inflatable that hook to the blower motor. These blower tubes also take a beating because unfortunately they are used as pull extensions when maneuvering the inflatable from one location to another spot while at a rental usually although not recommended by inflatable manufactures. The constant pulling of these tubes with the weight of the inflatable bearing down on the stitching of the vent where it is connected to the inflatable eventually fails and must be re-stitched.

The good news is that this is a relatively easy repair. We replace the blower tube by opening the bounce mattress from the bottom and un-stitching and removing the damaged blower vent from the bounce mattress. Then replace it with a new color coordinated tube.

Replace or Repair Velcro and Zipper

Velcro is not just glued onto an inflatable, but rather it is sewed on during original manufacturing by stitching a continuous run of thread along both sides of one strip. Keep in mind that Velcro is a heavy duty cloth material that has on one side thousands of loops bonded to it, and a matching separate strip side compiled of thousands of little hooks. Replacement of Velcro strips requires covering of hundreds of existing needle holes by the replacement strip. Otherwise you have many exposed holes that are leaking air continuously.

First we remove the damaged Velcro and then run two lines of vinyl glue along the exposed original stitch line covering all exposed holes. Then we place the new Velcro on top of the vinyl and position it exactly along the previous positioning at time of original manufacturing. Once the Velcro adheres to the vinyl, you must then sew the Velcro on both sides with a new line of stitching taking care NOT to sew over the original needle holes because that area of the vinyl has been weakened and compromised. If Velcro is not replaced properly, you can bet the house that your inflatable will be in shop much sooner than expected.

Replacement of zippers is very similar to Velcro replacement with the exception that you need to use air-tight zippers that are sewed on in similar fashion to regular sewing of zippers on cloth material. This is a simplistic conceptual explanation however. Realistically speaking, zipper installation and replacement also require sewing technicians experienced in such as above.

Repairs Window Netting Repair and Replacement

The window sections of an inflatable are those areas covered by netting or see-through mesh that allow for visibility into the inflatable bouncing area.Many times the mesh or netting used to enclose the window section’s of an inflatable tend to tear or rip causing dangerous openings ranging from small quarter coin size holes to entire rips along the seams of the window. It is highly recommended that you immediately attend to these tears or rips because young inflatables will invariably stick their hands or fingers into these holes and injure themselves. Often the type of injury resulting from a limb or finger getting caught in one of these holes or rips is a broken finger, hand and many times a wrist. Although injuries of these sorts are not life-threatening, you must consider that you will be 100% liable for the injury because the injury occurred as a direct result of neglected maintenance. Unfortunately, repair of this type of damage requires full replacement of the window section itself. As you cannot patch or hand sew a damaged section of a window without it being very noticeable and unsightly.

Replacement of the entire window section does not require tearing open an inflatable at the seams. You simply remove the damaged window and re-sew another window into place. This is simple flat sewing of the new window unto the vinyl material that connects two columns together. You are not piercing the inflated column or bounce mattress that holds air. Thus your inflatable remains in tact and not perforated further by sewing machine needles.


Professional Repair Pricing

Non Emergency Drop Off Inflatable Repair: $150 an hour

Emergency While You Wait Inflatable Repair: $250 an hour