Mattress Forum

I like your post and I hope you are right.... but I do think it it will take a sea-change in this industry to achieve it.

We can't even get Consumer Reports to do a good expose of the mattress industry and they are about the only truly unbiased raters around..... I have read CR for years on other topics and have believed and basically agreed with their conclusions for the most part.... in fact I have made many of my major purchases based on their reports.   But with mattresses, their 2nd most requested topic, they say that they can't do a good evaluation of because there are too many inconsistancies, and too many models. I say BALONEY - what a cop out - we do it here on this forum and although its not scientific and its certainly not perfect, you can get a feel on here for what is true and not true. Especially if you read between the lines. 

Anytime you see posts on this forum repeatedly expounding the merits of one mattress over another without any criticism of itself - run from it. It's just sales talk. We all know there is no perfect mattress that will fit all;  not innerspring, not memory foam, not latex and no, not even waterbeds.  Each has its following, as it should be and there are certain merits to each type. Only by honest, fair and accurate accounting of our own experiences does this forum merit any real and lasting value. When it starts to only turn into a Ra-Ra place for one type of mattress to put down the other, it loses its value as an unbiased resource. I would really hate to see that, because right now, this is the only place around.  Also n my opinion  I think it is wrong if one type of mattress is pushed on every newcomer that makes a post.  Let the newcomer read and figure it out for themselves, they are capable of making their own conclusion.

 
Looks like you got the picture posting figured out.  Here's a short primer I wrote in another thread if it will be of any help.

"About the posting of pictures.... First, if you use Windows XP, go and get the Microsoft picture resizer (google this). It will take the pictures that our current digitals are taking and turn them from 3 mb into 50 kb size without a big loss in clarity. This is a must if you are posting a bunch of pictures. You don't want to put 2 or 3 mb pictures up on webpages. So take all your pictures and then resize them down to under 100kb. Then find one of the numerous websites that freely host pictures and figure out how to upload your pictures to the site. I used imageshack.us to host mine, it is free and works well. There are many others. When you upload the pictures, you will get a web address for the picture, and then you will insert this into your post using the "insert/edit image" button on the editor toolbar.  I had a little trouble getting the address right as there are a few possibilites depending on where you are going to post your pictures."

My mattress has an open offset coil unit inside a foam encasement and the corners of the bottom layer of foam was lightly glued to that. You have pocket coils and there doesn't appear to be any encasement. The bottom layer of batting may be wrapped around the edge support of the coil unit. A little probing and you should be able to tell whether it is also glued to the coils. If it is just leave it in place, since it may be acting like an insulator between the coils and the padding layers. In any case the body impressions probably don't penetrate to this layer anyway. 

Good luck with your mattress surgery. I'm so glad I did mine. I love the way the mattress feels with latex and memory foam over the coils instead of lots and lots of crappy convoluted PU foam. Now I hate to get out of bed in the morning.

Hey Jo Jo,

Until you get your mattress open and see what's going on inside it's impossible to say what you'll need to replace. If it's only the batting that makes it easier, but soft convoluted foam fails very quickly, so you may have to--or just want to replace the top most layer with something more durable.

I agonized long and hard over where to make my incision. It depends on what your objective is. Some people who have performed mattress surgery just removed the entire top by unraveling the welt. This will save you the trouble--and it is A LOT of trouble--removing the quiliting and any foam sewn inside the cover. I wanted to preserve the top--just remove the tufting which I disliked, and the two layers of soft convoluted PU foam inside--which I hated. I cut under the welt on three sides so that it remained attached to the cover. The sides of my mattress were very well padded and supported by innerfacing. I just added some binding tape at the top to prevent any fraying and provide a smooth, clean edge to which I attached velcro tabs to secure the top in place.

You have to decide what your objective is and go from there. Initially I envisioned putting in a big zipper mattress kit style, but you really need an industrial strength sewing machine to do that, plus I'd have to remove everything inside the cover--springs, foam encasement etc, and it was more effort than I wanted to go through. In the end velcro worked just fine, and when you slip a mattress pad over the thing it's all secure. The important thing is to really think it through before you make that first cut.