Inflatable Repairs Stressed and Ripped Vinyl

Proper repairing of “stressed or ripped” vinyl requires vinyl replacement at the closest seams.

You cannot repair ripped vinyl. You must unstitch the particular section where the rip has occurred and replace it with new vinyl. The reason for replacing it at the seams is to avoid new stitch lines. For example, if a tear or rip occurs on any visible part of the inflatable, the only way to avoid someone noticing that an area has been repaired is by replacement of the entire section of vinyl where the tear or rip has occurred. Sometimes you are lucky and the rip occurs in a section of vinyl that is small in diameter. You need only open the bounce house from the bottom and unstitch the damaged area and remove it; and then re-sew all opened areas.

Inflatable Modifications and Custom Manufacturing

Here we have an area of inflatable modification and custom manufacturing where it is crucial that you utilize the services of the manufacturer or a certified repair shop.

Modifications require a full engineering knowledge of the original manufacturing process. An analogy to this would be like adding a new bedroom to an existing house. You have to analyze the air-conditioning capabilities of the existing A/C system 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 a new area to an inflatable, it will require added blower pressure to maintain proper firmness. If the blower motor is undersized then you’ll have a major problem maintaining appropriate air-pressure to keep the inflatable firmly pressurized.

Inflatable Repairs Replace, Repair or Add Blower Intake Vents

Blower intake vents are those 8’ round extensions coming from your inflatable that hook to the blower motor. These blower vents 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. The constant pulling of these vents 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.

Inflatable Repairs Replace or Repair Velcro and Zipper

Remember, 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. Thus you have the “Hook-and-Loop” identification terminology used in the industry.

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.

You must first remove the damaged Velcro and then run two lines of vinyl glue along the exposed original stitch line covering all exposed holes. Then you need to place the new Velcro atop 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 you do sew over existing needle holes chances are you are severely weakening the vinyl along that line of stitching because of the two runs of needle hole puncturing along the same line of vinyl. Couple the severe weakening of the vinyl due to the puncturing of the material by sewing hundreds of holes along one line, and then place pulling pressure from the two connected strips of Velcro and you have a recipe for disaster.

NOTE: We can also custom make any size bag you may need for storage like for inflatables, tents or any type of accessory.