I bought a 2nd hand waterbed back in the '70s that I used for many years.
(They're really nice. The temperature is always right, summer and winter. And there are no hard spots.)
Then I didn't use if for several years. When we moved to Moraga, I set it up again.
During my Santa gig, at Sun Valley Mall, I damaged my right wrist, so could no longer make the bed.
So we bought a really heavy foam mattress, and Elaine, by herself, put it on top of the water bed.
(Because, you know, emptying the waterbed would be a major chore.)
Saturday night, Elaine noticed water outside the waterbed bag, where it shouldn't be.
The construction of a waterbed is a 2x10 frame, on a plywood base, with a liner, and the bag inside that.
The liner was still good, so water didn't get outside of that.
In a waterbed, there's a fill fixture, that fits the male end of a garden hose.
But it's so old that the plastic is very hard and won't accept hose.
It's now 50 or more years old, so I surely cannot complain about the construction.
But I do have to empty it. Back to the garden hose, now used as a siphon.
I put one end of the hose into the liner, and took the other end into the shower, that being the available drain.
Then I sucked on the end of the hose in the shower until I felt yucky water in my mouth.
It stopped several times, and I had to repeat the sucking process over and over.
(If I get sick and die in the next couple weeks, you'll all know why.)
As we went along, we dumped more and more water out of the bag, into the liner, 'cause that's where the siphon was.
Toward the end, we managed to carry the waterbed bag outside, and dump out what little water remained,
that we hadn't already released from the bag to the liner, so we could siphon it.
By midnight Sunday, we managed to get the water level in the liner down to 1/2", after which the siphon failed.
On Monday, Elaine folded the liner sides in, to decrease the size of the puddle in the liner, which worked well.
And then we both put boards around edges of the already folded liner, and eventually decreased the size
of the 'puddle' in the liner, in stages, from 42 sq ft, to about 2 sq ft.
The siphon has drained more than 99% of the water, so we're down from 300 gallons to maybe just a couple.
Elaine and I carried the water bed bag outside to the deck, and dumped what water that was left, out.
Next we got some help, carrying the heavy, wet, foam mattress, and the liner with some water still in it, out to the deck.
(At first, we just stood the mattress up, at the foot of the bed, to get at the waterbed.)
The foam mattress had (and still has) some significant amount of water in it, (and probably will forever) and needed to be outside.
What's left in the bedroom now is the waterbed frame, with no mattress.
Now we need to decide what should replace the waterbed. I've pretty much decided on a 'regular' matterss.
That waterbed, full of water, weighs about 2,000 lbs, and I'd rather that the house frame didn't have to support that much weight.
Keep in mind, where the bed was is about 2-1/2 stories high -- the lot is anything but level.
And, this is earthquake country. We're only a couple miles from the Hayward Fault, which is 'overdue'.
I assume this means a new frame. The kids have a powered, adjustable frame, in which you can sit up (to read?).
I have to disassemble the waterbed frame, but that can be done in an hour once we've decided on a bed.
But we're being lazy, not checking out what kinds of mattersses are available.