Mattress Forum

I think all 3 are solid options....I say that if it feels the best and you have the expendable cash then the Hastens is going to be pretty fantastic, if its a big stretch on the budget than there is nothing wrong with a good quality latex option.

dpdesign:  I would find it very hard to pass up a Hastens 2000T at 40% off but here are a couple of things to keep in mind:  1.  The Hasten's topper does require maintenance - massaging to keep the materials from compressing.  Also, Hasten's reps do say you should eventually replace the topper about every 7-8 years - about a $1,000 touch.   2.  Would your friend actually let you sleep over at his place to try it for a full night?  I was set to buy one for myself a few years back and went to the Chicago Peninsula hotel to sleep on one for a night.  Turned out for me the overnight experience wasn't as pleasurable as the showroom tryout so I didn't buy one - thank goodness the opportunity to actually sleep on one kept me from making an expensive mistake.  Now, I do have some car accident issues so I'm having a challenge finding a bed.  I still think Hasten's are fantastic beds, just turned out not for me.  So if I were you, I would take full advantage of the friendship and try to get a full night's sleep on it.  If it still feels great, a 40% discounted Hasten's is a heck of a deal!

Diane

LOL wow...math failure on my part :)

As I recall you can get there California King box spring and mattress for about $5000. The interesting thing is if you don't need the box springs you can save half the cost. So an innerspring mattress for $2500 in a California King is fairly reasonable compared to latex mattresses. The people I spoke with seemed very friendly and helpful. Here is their website.

They have an excellent video showing there manafacturing process. Very interesting! Go to the top of the web page and click on "Inside a McRosky". The video will load then you need to click on the small play button at the bottom of the view screen.

http://www.mcroskey.com/

Diane

When you can get a 4 month's used Hastens at 40% off it seems like a "no-brainer", and in a way it is.

The pure value of the bed is certainly worth it, and then some! There is one thing you may have overlooked though.

Is a firm tension bed right for you? My name is Peter and I have done EXTENSIVE research on beds / sleep surfaces versus quality of sleep. In all fairness I need to let you know that I specialize in Hastens beds, and I do sell them. However I am not trying to sell you a bed, just offering help.

Though a Hastens bed can be thought of as a "soft" bed the word soft is often confused with "support", which is another thing all together. A bed needs to be soft, but it needs to be a well-engineered soft, and that is what a Hastens bed is. Typically a firm tension will not be for you unless you are around 220 lbs. or heavier. There are of course exceptions to this rule.

Whenever you have concluded that you need to invest seriously in the most important 8 hours of your day, with a bed that will hopefully be with you for the rest of your life, I would say it is of the utmost importance that you get professionally fit for that very bed.

I do not agree with the comment that a Hastens top-mattress (pad) needs to be changed every 7-8 years. You should use a high grade mattress protector i.e. Hastens 100% cotton mattress cover. If you do so, the top will last you many more years than any foam including Latex foam mattress. Moreover a Hastens top-mattress also called "Pillowtop" CAN but does not necessarily need to be massaged. This is really subjective to the user of the bed. Many users prefer the feel when the top mattress becomes slightly compressed; I am actually one of those users.

Lastly but probably the most important part of this equation that you need to know. Be aware of why beds typically wear out. It is not because the spring system gets exhausted (popular belief), it is actually because most beds contain foam as a filling material. Foam dries up and starts to crumble very quickly, which is the reason a mattress first becomes "lumpy" and then starts to "sag". Nowadays foam is mass produced and not of very high quality (not to mention the nasty chemicals that goes into foam manufacturing), this goes for all 3 foams available on the market, Polyurethane, Latex and Visco Elastic Memory foam. Horror stories of couples who have spent a few thousand dollars on a "good" foam mattress that wore out in 6 months are all too common these days. It is my personal as well as professional experience, there is no such thing as a "good" foam mattress.

The very best piece of advice I can leave you with is the way you narrow down your search for a good dependable mattress / bed manufacturer. Once you have narrowed down your search to a few different makes of what you feel may be the best choice, go to your web search engine and type in the manufacturers name followed by complaint. At this point you should listen to the end users and stop listening to any sales people (me included). If you are considering a manufacturer that have multiple complaints about their products and or business practices,... you may want to re-consider your future purchase.

Best of luck to you.

Sincerely,

Peter Tornell

One thing to keep in mind about latex mattresses.  Many of us (including me) love them, but many people also find that latex is not for them.

I was with you Pete untill you said this. You included Latex in your condemnation of bedding other than the Hastens. Surely you know, as a knowledgeable bedding person, that 100% all natural, botanically grown, latex does not behave as you have described above. you need to be more specific when you are describing foam, particularly latex, on this forum.

While Hastens makes a wonderful mattress that is all handmade, they also charge super high premium prices for their product. I have heard of prices in the $20-$40,000 range. And while they make some that are less expensive than this they are still for the very well-to-do. We have very few of those folks on this kind of a form.

"I checked into a McRosky mattress sometime ago. They have been in the San Francisco area since 1899 and make all their own parts. They are a traditional box spring and coil mattress manufacture. I called them and asked what it would cost to ship a mattress to the middle of the United States. They quoted me a very reasonable price of approximately $350. They have an excellent reputation and while they are not cheap or even anywhere near inexpensive, there are whole lot less expensive than that Swedish job. As I recall you can get there California King box spring and mattress for about $5000."

Dear Eagle2.

I agree McRoskey is a great, friendly and helpful company. I like them as an alternative to Hastens if Hastens is not for you. For your information, you can get a Hastens Marquis King or Cal-King for $5,750.

Not bad for "That Swedish Job"...

When it comes to foam, I will only use this forum to be helpful, and not combatible. My findings are based on years of research, and I stand by my findings. If you have found a special foam that does not react like all others, that is fantastic news.

Good luck to you.

I realize that all materials have their limitations. The natural fillings in a Hastens (or other brands similar to Hastens) would provide a more sumptuous feeling and would be more breathable than any variety of foam, however at the expense of not holding their shape as well (as latex) and for some requiring much more maintenance. 

I think at the end of the day...to the OP, you really have to convince this friend to actually let you use their Hastens bed for atleast a few nights to help you decide what is best. 

At the end of the day outside of something like a Hastens or Vi-Spring there really is not a lot of good soft mattresses you can buy that don't use foam of any variety....and if all other mattresses use foam...you are FAR better off sleeping on a latex mattress then any spring bed containing standard polyurethane foams.

It just seems that we have quite a few individuals who either praise or denigrate various products without being very specific. It is pretty difficult to help the uninformed person, who is searching for information on mattresses, when they do not get any specific information about the product that is being praised or condemned.

As bad as I hate to see the federal government have to step in all the time and make manufacturers do what they should do in the first place with a specific regulation, it seems to me we definitely need a good federal regulation governing the manufacture of latex foam so that the customer can see very specifically what it is they are purchasing. While the "Law Label" is good, ( very few people even know what a law label is or where it can be found) it still does not give you all the specifics you need in determining what is in a mattress. The big "S" brand mattresses are loath to tell you what is actually in their mattress. The niche market online retailers of latex foam tout their product extensively. And yet they're still is inadequate information sometimes between blended latex and 100% natural latex.

It just seems that if manufacturers have a crack they can squirm through, regarding what they're actually putting in their bedding, they will do so.

+ infinity

Dear Budgy,

Hastens Beds and Carpe Diem beds have only one thing in common....They are both manufactured in Sweden.

Other than that they have nothing in common, it is two completely different manufacturers, and yes Carpe Diem does use latex foam.

This is not the information I was given by the company that brings both of them over here for sale.  Or maybe I confused something....I was under the impression that they actually share some components such as the base of the boxsprings, and that the coil system used is nearly identical. In any event..... I still think it is relevant to say that not all foam "reacts" the exact same way.  Perhaps that could be explained more thoroughly.  Different types of foams (made from different materials no less) have very unique characteristics.

I'm glad that I found this blog as I may be able to shed some light on the subject.  Carpe Diem Beds of Sweden www.carpediembeds.com  and Hastens Beds www.hastens.com  are two separate companies that produce beds with a lot of similarities.

Many of the components used by both companies are actually built by the same vendors.  The pocket coil support system for example is made by Star Spring for both Hastens and Carpe Diem.  The hard wood base, cotton and wool are more examples of the similarities.

The biggest difference between the two brands is Carpe Diems choice to use a layer of Natural Latex Rubber (not foam) where Hastens uses a layer of horse hair. Both materials are natural, breathable and durable, but while the horse hair settles from day one causing the Hastens to slowly get thinner and firmer, the Carpe Diem does not settle.  It doesn't require the flipping and massaging that most Hastens mattresses  require and it does not get firmer with time as any horse hair bed will.

Carpe Diem was actually founded by a chiropractor who had a Hastens and liked it, but felt that he could design a bed that relieved pressure points even better. That is why the beds are so similar, he started with a Hastens and tweaked the design creating a bed that keeps the spine in more natural posture and one that eliminates pressure points better than any other bed that I am familiar with. 

Carpe Diem has even been rated the number one brand of bed in Sweden by the Swedish Furniture Industry Survey for each of the past six years.  Carpe Diem is rated higher than Hastens, Duxiana and every other brand of bed built in Sweden.

I have been importing the beds for the past four years and I am now getting involved in the distribution of the brand.

In addition, I have been retailing Hastens for over ten years as  I was the first to sell Hastens in the US, but I am discontinuing Hastens due to the fact that most of my clients prefer Carpe Diem when the two brands are displayed side by side.

Hastens is a wonderful bed and I have no complaints about the brand, but Carpe has some advantages that I prefer and my customers seem to prefer.

In the end it's all about comfort, so I suggest that anyone who is seriously trying to find the "best bed in the world" try beds from both brands and select the one that is most comfortable for them.

Thanks for letting me get my two cents in.

Jeff Klein

Svenska Beds