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Hi everyone - I found this forum several weeks ago after I could no longer ignore the nightly beating my current mattress was giving me. WOW - you all are such a great resource, I only wish I had found this forum two years ago prior to my mattress purchase. Well, I've been making up for lost time and devouring threads on here for the last few weeks, exploring webpages for retail stores and online sources, and I think I'm finally ready to ask a few questions. Background: very unfortunately for us, two years ago we paid about $1600 for a Serta Vera Wang "Toast" Eurotop "with latex" (queen). Body impressions were noticeable after a year or so but they have gotten progressively worse over the past year, with an uncomfortabely ridge in the middle. (Of course they're only an inch, and the warranty is 1.5", but I'm sure the mattress has a spot or two that voids the warranty anyway). My husband and are both back and side sleepers, average height/weight (I'm 5'4 and 130lb, he's 5'7 and 145lb). We didn't have any major pain until the mattress developed these divots. Thanks to the many helpful pictorials and explanations on here, sliced into the quilted portion of the pillowtop to inspect. Wow - crappy. And only a half inch of "latex"?! The quilt is about an inch, then the rest of the pillow top section is two 1" pieces of PU foam, then there's about a 4-6" thich piece of foam above the springs. The official list of components is here: http://www.americasmattressoc.com/Plush-Vera-Wang-Vera-Toast-Euro-Top-Mattress-p/vwi042746al.htm Rather than start from scratch, we'd like to try to find an inexpensive solution (ideally under $600) we can live with for a year or two until we're ready to spring for the perfect mattress setup. One picture so far, below. Here are my questions: If we remove just the pillowtop portion (about 3-4"), would a 2" medium firmness piece of Latex International talalay latex be a sufficient replacement? (ILD appx. 26 I think). This would be placed over the 4-6" of foam on top of the springs. Would this crappy lower foam still tend to develop divots with the latex on top? If we removed both the pillowtop AND the thick PU foam separating the springs from the pillowtop, what would be a recommended replacement? Maybe 1" firm, 2" medium and 1" soft? (I'm not fluent in ILDs yet...) I'm in SoCal and plan to tour OC this weekend to test out latex toppers and mattresses (I also want to see what good quality innerspring mattresses are like, i.e. Vi-Spring and probably Custom Comfort). Am I missing anything on my itinerary? Foam Sweet Foam Ergo Comfort Custom Comfort Maybe Modern Furnishings in Laguna Beach (to check out their Vi-Springs to see if they're worth saving for and to compare with the latex solution. And by "saving for" I'm envisioning the entry-level Elite or maaaaybe the Coronet models - in the $3-$4k range and that is it. Prefer not to have to go there though...) Thanks in advance for any help - and sorry this is so long.  |
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asotuba wrote: I'm trying to do what you are trying to do as well- make do for a while to afford a whole new bed. To that end we just got a 3" ILD 19 (soft) Talalay topper from SleepEZ in Arizona. It's only been on the bed for 1 night, but we can tell it is a huge improvement. The topper with cover was $520 King.
Thanks Asotuba! It's definitely encouraging knowing that others are going through similar experiments. Did you put your new topper directly on your existing mattress (i.e. no surgery performed yet)? I'm mostly just trying to figure out how much PU foam to remove, and how much latex to replace it with (within my budget). From looking at some of the reviews and surgery discussions, it sounds like it is NOT a good idea to leave any PU foam as it will still form body impressions underneath the latex. So I'm wondering: if I strip off all the stacked foam down to the spring level, and then add 2 or 3" of medium latex, will that be sufficient padding? I see that European Sleepworks uses about 2" over springs, but curious to know others' experience. Also, I'm getting a little concerned about the fire retardant fabric sheets I may be encountering, especially after reading the Chicago Tribune's apparent expose of the FR industry (and its backers): http://media.apps.chicagotribune.com/flames/index.html
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I just put it over my existing mattress, which has a 2" memory foam layer over 6" of firm PU foam. The memory foam has lost its memory, but is still fairly soft, although with some body impressions- certainly not ideal. Will try that for another couple of days, and then try flipping it to have the harder foam on top, just below my new latex topper. I did not do surgery- it's softer to keep the topper separate, and there is more benefit of the latex since it's closer to the skin. When my wife is back in town (after 3 months in Mexico this summer) I'll go ahead and add the other layers of latex to make a new bed, and put all 3 custom layers within a nice new casing. I'm fortunate in that there are no springs, so I really can't advise you about what to do with your springs, but surely someone else on this forum will. The fire-retardant materials you mention are indeed controversial. Many of the better natural and/or organic mattresses use wool instead, and it has fire retardent abilities along with comfort and wicking capabilities. |
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When we did mattress surgery on our pricey Stearns and Foster mattress, we pulled out ALL the PU foam. We put latex on top of springs and it has been so much better for us. We did our DIY solution for I think right around $600 for an eastern king so you definitely can too. We got 2 pieces totaling 3" of latex from Foam by Mail (FBM on the forum), but it was still way too firm (2" of medium and 1" of soft, but consensus on the board here is that the firmness is really much higher than what is listed) so then we got a 2" topper of natural latex from Arizona mattress. It was anxiety producing to spend so much money for stuff I couldn't see/test before hand -- but well worth it in the end. We also tried a cheap memory foam pad and cuddlebed topper from Costco -- but ultimately decided we didn't like either one. Eventually we may get a Natura or a Dormier wool cover and a 5.3 pound density memory foam topper, but for right now we are pretty satisfied. Good luck -- it's worth the plunge IMO :) and hi from a fellow SoCal person (Pasadena) |
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Stacytr - thanks so much for chiming in! Your project was part of my inspiration so it's good to hear you are liking the results (better than your previous mattress). So far we have not done anything more than slice more of the mattress and agonize over our latex choices! This weekend hubby and I went to Custom Comfort (to try tradditional innersprings with their variety of mostly removable - but upholstered - latex toppers), and then went on to Foam Sweet Foam. Briefly, the Custom Comfort folks were very friendly, knowledgable and helpful without being pushy or overbearing. I liked the exploded mattresses segments - both theirs and the Big companies. For what it's worth, their latex is all blended, 70/30 synthetic/natural, and they said that while they used to get it from LI, there had been some "issues" with some of LI's blended latex recently and they switched to Latexco for their latex. The guy at Foam Sweet Foam was also helpful, and it was great to be able to test run their mattresses - all either 100% natural Talalay or Dunlop. I also really liked their mattress encasements (which they don't sell separately, unfortunatey), because while they had only about 1/2-1" of wool, it was enough to feel the cush of the latex. By contrast, the higher end models at Custom Comfort (the "Palisades") had a nice - but thicker - wool and cotton cover and it changed the feel of the latex topper, as I've been reading. One thing we discovered quickly is that I need a soft layer of about 2+" because my back is very arched, so if I don't sink into the top layer enough, my back is uncomfortably arched when I lie on my back. However, I think if there is sufficient padding, I otherwise like a firm mattress, and hubby definitely does. So now I'm agonizing about the configuration. This message was modified Jun 1, 2012 by Warrigal
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OK, I'm just going to continue posting in case my experience helps someone else. Foam Sweet Foam happened to have a 2" piece of N3/medium natural Talalay in Queen size (normally they only sell 3" thickness, so this was a fluke and of course a final sale). But we figured it would be an inexpensive way to start experimenting with DIY latex. So we cut off the pillowtop, which consisted of an inch of convoluted PU foam, 1/2 inch of "latex" and 1/2 inch of more PU foam. That left two 1" pieces of foam which were directly over the springs of the mattress. So we left these two crappy PU pieces on, put an old sheet on top to separate the latex from the PU foam, and put the 2" N3 Talalay on over that - how AMAZING to have a FLAT, lump-free mattress again!
We don't have a case yet - we'll get one once we determine our final configuration. However, I did splurge for a new mattress pad, also from FSF, here: http://www.foamsweetfoam.com/queen-natural-mattress-pad-4.html. So I put the new mattress pad on directly over the latex, and then new sheets. The latex feels wonderful, but as I supsected I need a softer topper. So I ordered two 1" pieces of Queen size "scraps" from Sleep Like a Bear (Evelyn was really helpful in explaining the history of the two pieces - they were comfort returns, only used one night, and priced really well). So next week I will have a 1" N1 Talalay and a 1" N2 Talalay to go over the N3 here. We may remove one or both pieces of the PU foam underneath too. I will report back - I appreciate this forum being such a great resource and giving me the courage and inspiration to remedy my failing Serta mattress.
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