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I've been lurking for a few months now gathering information, and decided to sign up to get some final advice. My wife (5'4", 105#, back sleeper) and I (6'2", 240#, side sleeper) purchased a Simmons (cal-king, pillowtop) 'Exquisite Ultimate Plush' in October 2001, and it's been on it's last legs for a few years now Initially I was going to buy a whole new set, and then I stumbled across this site and all of my plans went up in smoke! My new plan is to perform surgery on the Simmons (I've alread made a 12" incision to examine the internals), and place a mix of latex and memory foam on top. If the Simmons coils are completely shot (they're almost 10 years old), I will buy a Sealy Alanson from Costco (mattress only, $520), and excise any foam from that model. So, from my research I think I have determined we would like a 2" layer of 32 ILD latex over the coils, followed by the 2.5" Novoform Gel topper from Costco (which we already own), and topped off with 1" of 19 ILD latex. I've read several posts regarding Foam By Mail's quality control issues, but most of those threads appear to be a few years old. How are things currently? Are they delivering proper sized and correct weight/ILD items? I understand some of their pieces 'look' a bit rough, but if it's just cosmetic I'm ok with that. (If FBM is still having some issues I'm thinking of ordering just the 2" 32 ILD base from FBM, and then ordering the 1" 19 ILD from a more reputable (and expensive) company, like Sleep Like a Bear, SleepEZ, etc.) For the record, my wife and I visited a SoCal Custom Comfort showroom last weekend -- the Tradere smooth-top model with a separate 2" latex topper was amazing! So was the price!! But, I don't remember ever lying on a showroom bed and immediately thinking it was the best mattress I've ever been on. And, it really sold me on the idea of latex over coils. Thanks for reading, and looking forward to any input on suppliers or ILD mixes. Joe B.
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Joe_Blowe wrote:
Surgery continues!
As you can see from the pictures, the individual pocket coils are actually glued together. Everything appears to be tied together at the edges via a stapled perimeter wire. I cut into one of the pockets and measured the diameter of a coil; it's 2 mm, which I believe makes it 12 gauge. The surface of the springs appear to be somewhat level after 10 years -- the sag that was quite apparent when looking at the quilted top is simply not there! Maybe there's some life left in this old bed after all... Over the next couple of nights we'll be trying a new latex sheet, maybe in different combinations with the Novaform gel and the old polyfoam. For tonight it will be 2" of 28 ILD latex on top of one old sheet of polyfoam, and we'll see how we feel in the morning. I think your initial objective should be to try to find a combination that provides enough support and feels firm enough or possibly too firm. If you can do that, then the coils might be okay to work with. So, for example, try just the 2" 28 of latex right on top of the coils (ideally without even the polyfoam because that probably is shot), and hopefully that will provide more than enough firmness and support. If it is too firm, then starting adding until you get the right level of support and comfort (the poly foam or the Novaform). One problem might be that you don't have many pieces to work with. So, you might go from too firm (with just the 2" of 28) to too soft when you add the 2.5" Novaform. At which point you might want to buy 1-2" of 24 and/or 1" of 19ILD or 1" of memory foam. Most likely you will waste some money trying to get the right combo (I certainly did). SLAB is expensive, but at least you can return for some money and you pretty much no what you are getting. 1" or 2" from FBM might be worth a gamble, but probably not for the top inch or 2. p.s. I would add that whatver mattress pad you use will affect the feel, so you should do your testing with whatever mattress pad you expect to use. This message was modified Aug 19, 2011 by sandman
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