Works great, plastic punctures easily
This bag works quite well, as long as you have the right vacuum for it! I have purchased and used this exact product twice so far, because I end up puncturing it every time I use it (more on this later). The first time I used it, I tried using my regular household vacuum cleaner (Miele canister vac). It worked a little bit, but the vacuum quickly overheated and shut off. Most household vacuums aren't meant to operate at maximum suction without a lot of air flowing through them (because they rely on the incoming air to cool the motor). The second time I used this bag, I used a large shop-vac (Rigid brand vacuum). This worked a LOT better and didn't suffer any overheating issues. If you want an even better vacuum, I have some more info later on. For most people, using a standard shop-vac will do the job nicely. Once you have pulled the vacuum, fold the mattress over and strap it up. Having a second person to help here is very useful -- one person sitting on the mattress to keep it folded while another person straps it worked very well. I used the included straps to hold it in half, then used some ratcheting straps to tighten it up even further. Note that if you use ratchet straps, put a piece of cardboard or something like that between the metal ratchet body and the plastic bag to keep from puncturing the plastic. The attached image is of a Purple 3 mattress under full compression. I think the compression is just as good as the factory does, but I didn't have enough leverage to actually "roll" up the mattress and could only fold it in half. Its still plenty small enough to fit in the back of a normal station wagon/hatch/SUV. Once your mattress is vacuumed and folded, you really should add some extra protection. You can wrap the mattress in mover's plastic wrap, or find some other heavy duty plastic/tarp to wrap this in. The vacuum bag punctures VERY easily. This happened BOTH times I tried moving with this. It's not the end of the world, as long as your straps are tight -- the straps will keep the mattress MOSTLY contained even if the vacuum is lost, but it will be a LOT more difficult to move around without the vacuum intact. Note that I punctured this even though I was trying to be very careful. I was moving my mattress with a helper down a short walkway between my door and the car. The mattress was very heavy, so we stopped once to put the mattress down and take a quick break. The bag touched a grain of sand on my walkway (yes, just a grain of sand), and this caused a minute puncture. It was enough that I could hear it leaking, but I couldn't stop the leak with duct tape or anything like that because of all the creases in the plastic. Within 2 hrs, the mattress bag vacuum was completely lost. So if you want the ultimate vacuum, I had good results using a four-stage diaphragm pump with a shop-vac as a roughing vacuum. Most people won't have access to this equipment, and probably won't need this level of vacuum to be honest. My shop-vac took the vacuum down to about 650 torr. I was able to attach a diaphragm pump using an NW25 fitting. If you remove and use just the O ring from an NW25 centering ring, it will fit over the inlet port nicely and creates a good seal once a vacuum is established (see photo for more info). I took it down to 40 torr and said "good enough" there. The majority of the compression had already happened with the shop-vac -- the difference between 650 and 40 torr was noticeable, but not enormous. Read more
