Mattress Forum

FBM Foam & Latex 1 year update
Oct 13, 2009 12:05 AM
LatencyMachine
Location: Cypress, TX
Joined: Aug 28, 2008
Points: 41
My wife and I have been sleeping comfortably for over a year now on our FoamByMail/FoamDistributing custom foam bed (E King). From bottom to top I have 2x 1" HD36-HQ, 5" LUX-HQ, 2" Medium Latex, 1" Soft Latex, CuddleBed. I originally had the HD36 over the LUX, but as the bed wore in, we felt that the HD36 softened up too much, so we moved it to the very bottom. If I were doing this build again, I would omit the HD36 and just get another section (2") of LUX.

I'm 5'8 165# side, back and stomach sleeper, my wife is 5'7 125# side sleeper. All issues I had last year with tossing all night, waking in the morning and limping to the shower because I was all stiff, etc, have been gone since sleeping on this bed. An added bonus that I did not expect, is that my feet no longer get cold. In the winter I usually have to pile on heavy blankets along my feet. I did not have to do this last winter, and so far so good this season. I attribute this to improved circulation.

The CuddleBed was a little too warm over the summer. We did remove it for about week and replaced it with a conventional polyfil mattress pad which resolved the temperature issue, but we missed the plush feel of it and put it back on. Next summer I intend to do something different. Perhaps a wool pad or a convoluted latex top layer and the thin polyfil pad.

The bed did break in a bit during the first 3 or 4 months. What I mean by this is basically a softening of the foam... a reduction of the ILD, if you will, where the most weight is exterted on the bed. This is experienced by laying in the middle, and feeling the firmness, and then moving to the sleeping position and feeling as if your butt and back are slightly less supported. This concerned me the most, but has remained the same as far as I can tell (it did not progressively get worse). The extent of this is nowhere near as bad as the Sealy we had. I don't want to send the wrong impression -- I'm not talking about full-on body impressions or hammocking. This is nothing like that. It's a very subtle, but certainly perceptable, loss of support.

I did discover that 1x4 pine slats, no matter how closely spaced together (mine are about 2"), are not adequate as a foundation. As crazy as it sounds, just an 1/8" of deflection (downward bending) of the slats can be perceived. I got the idea of using a bottle jack to experiment with adding support to the different slats. This felt great! In fact, I've found that jacking up the 2 slats under the butt area ever so slightly (about 1/16") creates a very comfortable support mechanism. I accomplish this with a short piece of 2x4 and 1 bottle jack. I believe this concept to be the secret to foam bed fine tuning and achieving ideal support. This is very akin to Euro style slatted bases, but the idea is to not let the slats flex down at all, and have some of the slats actually bowed upward just a bit.

So, I plan to redesign my base that I built. I have an idea that should allow for adjusting the upward deflection of certain slats from under the bed (sans bottle jack) without moving the mattress, while the other slats are supported by a center spine that runs down the center of where you lay. The key is not allowing any slat to sag, while allowing some slats to press up more against your body. If/when I complete construction of this base, I'll post all of the pics.

In summary, I have no regrets about this bed. It has been a very enlightening experience. I have ideas to make it even better, but it certainly has been very comfortable. We are reminded how great our DIY foam bed is every time we travel and have to sleep somewhere else.

Thanks for reading my post! I hope this helps anyone currently on the fence.
This message was modified Oct 13, 2009 by LatencyMachine
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