Hi, my name is Bruce and I have worked in the mattress industry for 12 years now. Many years on the retail side of the bedding business taught be that a mattress can be the most difficult piece of furniture to pick out for your home. There are several major contributing factors to this:
Allow me elaborate as it is not my intention to put down the intention of this forum. I am very much in favor of the idea of customers connecting and sharing their experiences with particular beds. If a retailer is selling quality goods, they should have nothing to fear from people giving honest testimonials using their products. Reading reviews & buying a bed is a lot different than reading reviews & buying a tv (for example). A great quality set looks good not matter who is buying it...big or small, tall or short, average consumer or tech guru. That's NOT the case with a mattress. It's a touchy subject but BODY WEIGHT is one of the most important variables when buying a mattress....people come in all shapes & sizes. Many 'larger than average' folks have gotten burned in the past buying a bed built for the 'average person'. Slick salesmen in action. I think this is where LATEX seems to have established an almost cult-like following (especially in this forum). In general, latex foam beds have greater durability than the average bed....nothing magic about it. They also cost more than the average bed. They also tend to carry some of the best warranties. It's a simple matter of getting what you pay for. As for the great debates.... Natural vs Synthetic Talalay vs Dunlop 34 ILD vs 36 ILD etc etc etc If you find yourself LIVING on a forum such as this, you're probably over thinking it. I could show a customer hundreds of good quality beds on paper....but none of them would be a good value if they're not comfortable to the person who is going to be sleeping on it. If you're shopping for a latex foam mattress, have done some basic homework on price & quality, then shop your local stores. Find what you like (that you can physically try out) & what you don't....and then certainly see if you can find a better deal on that bed online or from a competitor. A word of caution though: If you find one that absolutely works for YOU, don't try skimp out buying a 'knock off' online just to save a couple bucks. If I gave 5 different bed companies the same 'recipe' for a bed, I am going to have 5 different feeling beds at the end of the day. You may be suprised when the UPS guy arrives with your bargain. I shake my head and grin reading about how folks seem to be trying to find the foam density that best defines them as a person. Use common sense, define your budget, and find the best quality mattress for the money you have to spend. The people who AGONIZE over the decision for months (sometimes literally years) are the ones who will never find the 'perfect bed'....but have an 'expert' opinion on everything. It's like having an tech guy who knows everything about the latest cutting edge technology......but he's still running the same Windows 98 machine he's had for over a decade. Most folks who will post to an internet forum like this (provided they're not reviewing a purchase they've made...which would actually be VERY HELPFUL to those seeking guidance) have never stepped foot into a bedding factory nor do they have any first hand experience with the raw materials. They're simply reiterating stats & figures they've read online from random web sites. The Costcos, Sam's Clubs, and Big Lots of the world are NOT sleep shops and often carry mid-range bedding offerings IMO.......don't get me wrong, you can find some very decent values there, but have realistic expectations. A gas station can sell you milk & bread, but you don't go there to do your weekly grocery shopping. Just sharing a grounded perspective of the situation....best of luck to all of you on your mattress searches. There ARE good beds out there that won't cripple your pocket book. Visiting a local retailer is a good place to start. If you buy from a retailer that treats you right, REVIEW their STORE online (via Google, Yahoo, etc etc); this will help other weed out the good stores from the places just out to make a buck. Bottom line: Shop around......find good quality....don't over pay. It's not rocket science; it's bed shopping :-) -B |
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perchancetodream wrote:
Case in point: You want to know how HARD or resilient a specific innerspring is to try and determine how supportive it is. You might know the coil count and gauge of wire, you might even know the # of turns in each coil, the carbon content of the wire used, how its tempered, etc. What none of these individual #'s tell you is the actual strength of the wire....its a guessing game even with all the specs you can think of. If manufacturers wanted to make it easy they could just calculate the specific spring rate per square inch of the mattress, and how much the rate increases or decreases with compression to take into effect the progressive rate of the spring system, it would also give you an idea of how flexible the coil system is. Some technical data can quantify performance to a degree, most technical data on mattresses are simply parts of the formula that most people could simply not use to determine said performance. What I am trying to say is that even the hardest of specs do not describe to you how something will conform to your body shape. Sometimes just knowing the basics is enough. |
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budgy wrote:
Case in point: You want to know how HARD or resilient a specific innerspring is to try and determine how supportive it is. You might know the coil count and gauge of wire, you might even know the # of turns in each coil, the carbon content of the wire used, how its tempered, etc. What none of these individual #'s tell you is the actual strength of the wire....its a guessing game even with all the specs you can think of. If manufacturers wanted to make it easy they could just calculate the specific spring rate per square inch of the mattress, and how much the rate increases or decreases with compression to take into effect the progressive rate of the spring system, it would also give you an idea of how flexible the coil system is. Some technical data can quantify performance to a degree, most technical data on mattresses are simply parts of the formula that most people could simply not use to determine said performance. What I am trying to say is that even the hardest of specs do not describe to you how something will conform to your body shape. Sometimes just knowing the basics is enough. See we're talking the same language so to speak. A lot of times the so called "tech" info given doesn't help much. In the example you give much of the info is of no real use. What I'd want to know is spring rate (spring rate doesn't change with deflection unless we talking of varible pitch springs) and how high up on the stress strain curve you are with and inetnded load. Get too high up on the curve and springs could yield, sag, and or even break with use. Tis posible to design 2 spring with same spring rate that behave in totally different ways. So just knowing wire ga. # of turns, carbon content of the wire, etc. doesn't really tell you much but might be impressive to those that are not techically savy in this area.
Same can be said for foam. See the word "poly" used fairly often here but that doesn't mean much as defination of poly is many. Are we talking polyethylene, polycarbonate, polyurethane, etc. With plastics, polymers are a joining of many monomers. Doesn't really mean anything useful as far as mattress selection is concerned. IMO unless you bleed green, I'd not wory about natural Vs synthetic materials. Big thing now in the area of Polyurethane is soy based PU. While soy may be a natural material I wouldn't call the PU derived from soy exactly natural and to top it off, the soy component isn't very high. About the highted you see being promoted is 30% but as PU needs a catalast the real amount of soy derived PU is a lot closer to 15% max.
As I said before, there is more than one reason to loose sleep and info overload can be one, expecially if it contains information you fully don't understand. |
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You have of course given us a perfect example of redundant information, Bruce! But in my observation this isn't usually the sort of information that people in this forum are wanting to know. As for natural materials being no better than synthetic ones, it stands to reason that man-made fabrics are cheaper to manufacture, resulting in bigger profit margins for the mattress makers/sellers. As long as this cost-saving is genuinely passed on to the consumer, I am happy for people to be offered the choice. However, one would have to take into account other considerations, such as the environmental cost, health risks, etc. |
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While I appreciate Bruce's view, I pretty much totally disagree with it. Only because I've sunk over $5000 into three mattresses in the last five years, while a $300 mattress got me through the 7 years before that with far less pain and suffering - literally. I regret letting that one go just because I got married. It would've saved me countless hours of sleep. I will never take as an answer that I should stop thinking about it. I will never shut down and trust my sales agent again because EVERY one of the last three mattresses was wonderful for the first 6 months, but then each one invariably formed a "normal body impression" that made my back ache and my wife and I each fall into our respective chasms, with a mountain ridge between us. So Bruce, I will not shop only on comfort experienced in the store. I will continue to spend sleepless nights looking for a cure to my sleepless nights, because if I actually sleep on my bed for 8 hours I will be so pained in the morning I won't be able to get up anyway. All I want is a new copy of my old mattress, but I can't find it. So I spend my hours trying to find sleep. It was a Sealy Posturepedic Firm "Prime Ltd". |
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Bruce, with all due respect, I think you misunderstand the nature of this forum. As I see it this forum is largely about latex and other foam type mattresses, not so much about S brands and other "regular" type mattresses. Also this forum tends to attract those who have mattress "issues": those who have trouble getting a good night's rest and those who have bought 1, 2 or 3 S brand or similar conventional mattresses and still cannot get a good night's sleep for one reason or another. They come here and read about things like latex mattresses, DIY mattresses, and thus the discussion of the right foams for their bodies and conditions. If you're going to build your own mattress you certainly may find a forum like this one very useful. Someone mentioned Tempurpedic. It is the most popular mattress in the USA. It is also the most RETURNED mattress in the USA. It is also the most advertised mattress in the USA. Just sayin'. Frankly I think Tempurpedics are more for those who have no sleep issues, as opposed to those who do have bad backs, sore neckes, fibromyalgia, etc.. But that's just my opinion, others may differ. The point is that Tempurpedic is just foam, no springs, and while their particular brand of visco foam is unique, there are other foams one can buy that are similar, for a helluva lot less money. Which is one reason why people come here to learn about ILD's and densities and etc of various foams. I have slept on Tempurpedic, hated it, and I would guess that most people with any difficulties with finding the right mattress would be better off with latex, latex+visco or latex+springs(+visco). Latex. You can buy one that Sterns and Foster makes or you can buy one from one of the companies that specialize in latex mattresses. Either way, before sinking a couple grand or more into a latex mattress you may want to learn something about ILD's and Talalay vs. Dunlop, natural vs. synthetic, etc.. Some people can sleep on anything that is about the right feel for them. Those people can walk into any store, bargain a little and get a decent matress for well under a grand; heck, maybe they can sleep on a $300 mattress with no problems. Other people have to find just the right kind of support and feel for themselves and those are the kinds of people who tend to gravitate to this forum, to learn the ins and outs of mattresses (no pun intended ;-D ). |
| This is the most realistic reply that I have read. LOVE IT this is the truth I think this should be posted on the home page. |
| Tempurpedic is the most returned mattress in the industry? I'm sure you have the facts to back this statement up. The fact is, is they do allow you to return this mattress for a refund (minus whatever shipping costs, etc.). That kind of gurantee is not offered by a majority of manufacturers. That would make their returns less than tempurpedic. I guess you could look at it that way. I can almost gurantee you costco's beds and sleep number beds are probably returned more often. A good friend of mine works at costco. He's amazed at the number of returns. Tempurpedic works for me. |
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Good_Sleep wrote: Tempurpedic is the most returned mattress in the industry? I'm sure you have the facts to back this statement up. The fact is, is they do allow you to return this mattress for a refund (minus whatever shipping costs, etc.). That kind of gurantee is not offered by a majority of manufacturers. That would make their returns less than tempurpedic. I guess you could look at it that way. I can almost gurantee you costco's beds and sleep number beds are probably returned more often. |
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<$0.02>
I agree with a lot of what Bruce says. Most people go down to their local Mattresses R Us, lay on a few mattresses in their price range and have it delievered the next day. The people on this forum, though, generally don't fall under that category. I see a lot of people that have sleep issues, not all from injuries. My office mates tell me to just go buy a Tempur; they like theirs. Another officemate looked at us like we were crazy; he want to Macy's found a mattress on sale, went to another store, found the same mattress and that store beat Macys by some $$$. $1k later, he had an innerspring mattress. I liked the Tempur, but I'm worried about heat issues, tossing and turning from within a canoe and buying an eco-unfriendly mattress. And in the $2k range, "organicy" latex is available and I'm willing to spend a but more for organicy. Unfortunately, most of the quality latex bed deals are only available via online merchants, hence people agonize over the unknown. And some of us just like being anal :-) And Bruce is generally correct in his assessment of you get what you pay for or TANSTAAFL. I'm trying to find the sweet spot where you get what you pay for without paying for a designer name. I think Tempurs are overpriced because they spend a huge amount on marketing. Fortunately, I have a Savvy Rest dealer near me and I liked the mattress. Going to Berkeley to visit a couple of foo foo organic latex bed stores just to be able to compare and visit the Cactus Nursery :-) I did, however, purchase a reclaimed wood bed sight unseen :-) < /$0.02> This message was modified May 25, 2011 by sleepswithcats
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Good_Sleep wrote: Tempurpedic is the most returned mattress in the industry? I'm sure you have the facts to back this statement up. The fact is, is they do allow you to return this mattress for a refund (minus whatever shipping costs, etc.). That kind of gurantee is not offered by a majority of manufacturers. That would make their returns less than tempurpedic. I guess you could look at it that way. I can almost gurantee you costco's beds and sleep number beds are probably returned more often. A good friend of mine works at costco. He's amazed at the number of returns. Tempurpedic works for me. That sounds about right... I never really thought about it like that |