- Good day folks, Ben from Snowys here.
Today, I'm talking through how to pack up
a self-inflating mat like this
and get it back in a storage bag.
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There's all sorts of different types
of inflating mats on the market.
These are all bonded ones here.
There's different valves
but they all have a similar concept
in that they all pack up small and go back into the bag.
So the general construction of these mats,
the ones I've got here today
are a foam which is quite often cored
down through the middle here,
there's cores that are drilled out
to allow the foam to pack up smaller.
And this exterior is bonded to the foam inside.
There are slight variations on that
in which is kind of like a bit of foam
stuck inside an (indistinct),
so if you blew it up too much
it'd kind of balloon up,
they're much sort of heavier,
firmer set of mats,
but the ones I'm showing you today
are these self-inflating ones.
But the same principle can be applied
to any foam mat with a valve
or even any foam mat really.
Now this is the mat
I'm gonna show you how to pack up shortly.
And they've all got slightly different valves.
You can see this is got a little reversible valve here.
This is a camping mat, 10 centimetre thick camping mat.
If we have a look over year
I've got a slightly thinner hiking style mat,
same concept with the valves here though,
it's got both an inflate and a deflate feature
on the valve here.
This one here, same as the one we had before,
the valve is in the corner.
Below that again
another Sea to Summit mat
with a little reversible valve here once again,
both inflate and deflate.
Next pad I've got inflate on one side
and deflate on other.
And then this is a nice big thick 15 centimetre mat here.
Same principle applies
and it's got the little reversible valve in there.
So the principle of packing all these up is the same.
The only exception with this pile of mats here
and the one I've got stacked at the back here
is that's a double.
So, any double mat that you've got
you're probably gonna need to fold in half first,
and then follow the procedure that I'm gonna show you
on this mat here.
Now some of these mats you're gonna find
roll up easier than others.
This is a Zempire mat,
and it's got quite firm foam inside of it
without big cores in the middle.
So it requires a little bit more muscle to roll it up.
But there are benefits to that
in that it probably offers a little bit more comfort
without the extra foam.
If we just have a quick look down at some of these again,
this blue one here,
this is a Sea to Summit mat.
They kind of cut triangles out here
so there's less foam inside that,
which means it packs up a little bit easier.
But that's a bit more technology that goes into the mat,
and it does end up costing more,
so it's a bit of a balance between
how easy it is to pack up
and how thick it is when it's set up.
But as I mentioned, the concept is the same.
You gotta get this guy here, back in this bag here.
So, step number one, is to come to the valve
at the end here.
Now, what we want to do is flick this around.
Some mats may not have a valve,
most mats nowadays do.
This has got a little rubber seal on here.
You'll see, you can flick that open.
The idea here is when it's around this way
it's gonna allow the air to come out this way
but not suck back in.
If I wanted to inflate the mat, I flick this around
that allows the air to suck back in and not push out.
So when we're packing it up, we wanna be squashing air out.
So we're gonna be reversing this valve around.
so that the air only comes out.
Why we do that will make sense in a second,
because what we want to do
is roll this up a few times.
Rarely will you roll it up once
and get it as small as you need.
So, for the first time you do it,
just fold it loosely and squeeze as much air out as you can.
If you have a double mat, so much easier
to have a second person, or get your kids to lie on it
to squash the air out while you're doing it.
(air blowing out of mat)
Squash the air out
you can feel the air coming out,
possibly even for this first lot,
just open the valve completely,
till we get right to the end.
Squash all the air out.
So at this point here, we wanna make sure
before we unroll this, that we just flick this valve around
so that it's not gonna let the air back in.
Now, if we have a look at where this mats at now
you can hear I've got off that,
there's no air sucking back in.
It probably will very slowly over time.
But we're clearly not gonna get that back in this bag here.
It's just not gonna happen.
So we need to roll it again to squeeze out more air.
So if we unroll this, if you do have a mat
without the little valve on the end,
I'm not sure how you do it.
You just have to work really quickly.
If we now start to roll that a little bit tighter.
So squash and roll as you go.
At the moment, I'm not squeezing air out the end.
I'm just squeezing air to one end of the mat.
You keep going all the way.
And eventually you'll start to hear the air,
there we go.
So now this end of the mat is tight.
You can hear the air pushing out.
So we're now squashing air
out the mat.
The longer you sit on this
the more air squashes out.
(air blowing out of mat)
Now, once again at this point,
we may fit this back in the bag,
we'll have a go.
What I might do is put this in.
I'm gonna leave the valve like that, roll that up,
and we'll see if the bag is actually gonna go over the mat.
Which in this case it will.
So two rolls, and that will just fit a little bit of space.
But what I wanna do is roll it a third time,
show you how you can make it really compact.
Follow the process again, unroll it.
You can just leave that done up
and undo it at the end if you like.
Start from the end again
and roll it tighter again,
keep kneeling both knees if you can.
Roll it really tight.
You can see the air pushing
into this other end of the mat now.
At some point here we'll start to see it.
See if I just come to the end here
I can see that's now tight again.
So if I undo this valve,
roll it all the way.
(air blowing out of mat)
Now squashed even more air out,
roll it back and pop the valve on straight away,
because even though it's not letting air in
it will let it in slowly.
That seals it off completely.
That is gonna go back in the bag really easily.
If we've got a strap that came with the bag
now would be the time just to put it around here
to hold it all in place.
But we put that back in the bag, do up the end.
And that is how you pack up
a self inflating mat back into its bag.
Some of these bags are a little bit different.
Exped have a top loading bag.
This is kind of your traditional end loading bag.
This isn't actually the right bag for this.
It's actually designed for a smaller mat.
So I managed to get a bigger mat in a smaller bag.
It's just a little bit short on length,
but it went back in there pretty easily.
So same concept for any self inflating mat.
You could even use it for just a foam mat,
except you gotta move fairly quickly
as the mat starts to puff back up,
but most relevant where you can seal that valve off
at the end so you don't let the air come back in.
Roll it two or three times
and you'll get it back in the bag nice and easy.
So, you can check out a whole heap of camp mats
at snowys.com.au where you find them
at our lowest prices every day.
If you've got any questions on how I pack this up,
let us know down in the comments below.
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