How to tighten the valve to stop leaks

If you have noticed an air leak around the valve on your Board, do not be too worried, this is normally easy to fix simply using the supplied spanner in the orange tub of your repair kit.

Heat expansion during use can cause the valves to loosen, this is quite common. In fact there should have been a red tag on the valve informing you about this when the board was new out of the packaging. 

The valves are designed to be removable to allow replacement so are screwed together in place, rather than glued. Here’s an image showing the valve removed from the board and how the spanner fits:

To tighten the valve and improve the seal, remove the dust cover and insert the crown shaped end of the spanner into the valve and carefully turn clockwise. This can be done with the board inflated so you can hear when the leak stops.

The only difficulty with tightening up may be stopping the inner valve piece, located inside the board, turning as you tighten the outer part with the spanner, preventing the assembly from fully tightening.
To tackle this, with the board fully deflated, either kneel either side of the valve to hold it down or hold the inner part of the valve through the skin from the outside from below whilst you turn the outer part with the valve spanner. It can be helpful to have two people doing this together.

If you’re lucky you may even just be able to apply enough pressure without holding the bottom part of the valve to stop the leak you’re experiencing. However if the whole valve assembly just spins when you tighten it you will need to get some pressure on the underside

Do be careful not to over-tighten and damage the valve.

If after doing this you reinflate and find that you still have a leak, unscrew and remove the top part completely and check there is no dust or dirt inside the valve or the deck area that is causing it not to close up completely. You may notice some dropstitch fibres from inside the board that need to be cut away to keep the seal area clear.

Then carefully re-seat and tighten the valve, re-inflate and test for leaks again

If after all the above you still have an issue please let us know, as there are other things we can still help you with if the board still leaks air.