Mattress Forum

No matter what I do, I cannot make this mattress work -- with or without the case, with or without toppers, with or without zoning.

I don't understand why the mattress worked fine with a couple of toppers for the first year or so and doesn't work now under any circumstances, but I guess it will remain a mystery. Maybe the springs are fine, maybe they're shot; I just don't know. Seems like I tore apart a $700 mattress for nothing.

I've wasted time & money, my bedroom is full of mattress parts and latex toppers, my hands have a bunch of nicks from the springs and a gouge from the razor-tool, and I still don't have a comfortable bed. What I do have is back pain *caused* by my bed.

I can be a very analytical and methodical problem-solver, so it bugs the crap out of me that I can't figure out why this thing doesn't work or how to fix it... but I can't. Time to cut my losses.

Getting a firm mattress and buying toppers seemed like a good idea, but didn't work for me (after the first year). Or maybe it would have worked if the mattress had turned out actually to be as firm as I thought it was -- but who knows? (Not me, clearly!)

Getting a double-sided mattress didn't help, either, but just complicated the mattress surgery by adding variables, so I don't plan to do that again. It's just one more thing that seemed logical at the time....

On the bright side, I'm now up-to-date on my tetanus shot.
 

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I'm open to suggestions on what to try next. Pocket coils, for something more conforming? Or low-gauge Bonnell coils for serious firmness?

I have no idea. I'd still prefer an innerspring, rather than all foam (latex or otherwise), if I can find a spring system that works for me.

I also have no idea where to buy a mattress next, because even the local manufacturer is building goofy things with illogical (to me) configurations and the same PU foam that all the big companies use. I could ask them to build me a custom mattress, but that would probably be more expensive and, more to the point, I don't even know which components to ask for, so that doesn't seem like a great idea, either.

Phooey.

I'm sleeping on the couch tonight.

Suggestions for pocketed coils?  Yeah but it's a long shot.  Those multistrand wire coils in beautyrest-black mattresses are incredible.  Though finding a demo or someone trying to get rid one of those for cheap on craigslist or something is tough (am constantly looking), & way too expensive to buy new just for the springs.  Not so much with posturepedics, they're cheap and common. 

If you start running low on budgeted time & cash to experiment with, considering so much in mattresses & components are non returnable & too expensive to justify disposable experiments, you could try no risk/hassle finished products at the big box stores that have liberal return policies with no restocking/shipping penalties.  No fear of the suddenly quit working after a few months phenomenon- I once made a return at the very end of the 1 year window with no problem at sams.  They have a 5lb memory foam over 2lb PU foam (3" + 8") mattresses there, & costco has 759 coil ultrafirm sealy posturepedics, either for <$800/queen set.  Just throwing low hassle ideas out there for future consideration, because I wouldn't do anything out of frustration before completely ruling out what you're working with now.  It sounds like you're patience is wearing thin at this point though.

Really want a set of those.  Wish you could buy coils alone, but I've tried a few (US) component manufacturers both small & large, & it's hard enough to get a rep to even return my calls.  They just don't want to sell a set of coils or two to an individual.

Kind of hard to show, & not sure this is even necessarily proper, but I think mine are barely compressing an inch under my hips & shoulders, then not much at all elsewhere.  I pretty much stay on the top.  If yours aren't mashing down too much more than this, I doubt they're the problem, & definitely wouldn't give up on them yet.  If they have been supportive for you all this time, I doubt they could have degraded too much in just a couple of years.

I can only guess that they use a fairly soft coil system.  If they lied about the coil count, maybe the gauge is not what they said either.   Possibly the matting provided some support until it started to wear down.

Hard to say where to go from here.   You may want to put your toppers directly on the foundation to see how that feels.   You probably don't have enougth depth, but if you added 3" of base support you might have a decent latex/foam mattress.    Is there a reason you want an innerspring?

I think a high quality pocketed coil system is probably best for side sleepers.  However, that would probably be pretty expensive, unless you find something used.   It is hard to find anything reasonably priced that only uses good materials.  As always, to a certain extent you get what you pay for. That is why some of us ended up doing surgery out of desperation.  Certainly it is not the ideal solution. 

In my experience, the upper end Sealy Posterpedic coils provide plenty of support.   I would not say that they conform to the body of a side sleeper the best,   I have compensated by using 5" of foam above.  So, the coils end up working like a mix between a box spring and a mattress.

It would be nice is someone made a high quality innserspring with a zipper top, so it could be customized.   Not aware of any though. 

Not particularly. I just couldn't take another night on the mattress, and the couch was the only available surface other than the floor.
 

JasonRatky wrote:

Thanks for the measurements & pics; very interesting.

My springs, uncompressed, are about 5.5" high. I tried to measure how deep I sink, and it's awkward to do, so I might be off a little, but when I'm lying on my side, it looks like the lowest part of my hip sinks down about 2.5" -- in other words, it looks like the top part of the compressed springs there is at the 3" mark on the ruler.

It's hard to tell from a somewhat contorted angle, though; I'd have to have a friend measure to be sure.

sandman wrote:

I can't even tell anymore.

sandman wrote:

It looks like the springs get pushed both downward and inward (rather than outward) when I'm on the mattress. The spring structure does have some edge support built in, and there are the helicals going across, but without the whole mattress case keeping everything together, there seems to be more room for the springs to move around, sideways as well as down. I'm sure that's not helping matters.

sandman wrote:

I don't think anyone lied, and I don't want to disparage this company's reputation. I think the company is an honest one, and someone -- possibly me -- got mixed up.

I think the company is making some odd configuration decisions, and I think it doesn't quite have its act together in some ways (as evidenced in the print & Web materials I've seen, and maybe in some inefficient computer systems leading to some disorganization & confusion), but I don't think anyone that I encountered there is dishonest. Everyone I've talked to, both in 2009 and recently, has seemed straightforward and been helpful. Just want to be clear about that.

sandman wrote:

That is what I will try next, since I have so much latex here. (I'll try it first without adding more base support, to see how it feels. I'll use the old medium-firm Overstock Dunlop topper as the base for now.)

I'm thinking that I'd still prefer an innerspring because I'm used to innersprings and this is the first time I've had so much trouble with one that was still relatively new. And I'd love it if the innerspring provided the proper support and spinal alignment so that I wouldn't need to mess around with trying to zone the latex. But we'll see.

sandman wrote:

I don't know how good the innerspring units are, but Bay Bed & Mattress in CA sells innerspring mattresses that use latex on top and are enclosed in zippered cases. It'd cost a bit to have them ship a mattress to me, but they do ship out of state.

Thanks for the help, guys. Much appreciated. I'm pretty tired of banging my head against the wall trying to figure this thing out, and I have spent way more time on this than I can afford.

I vaguely recall Budgy at one point saying that the wires that connect the coils can be a weak link in the mattress.  I don't remember why, but maybe they can stretch out or loosen up (or both).  Especially if they are no thick enough or fastened well.  That reduces the overall support because the surrounding coils are not helping as much.  Just thought I would throw that out because your coils seems to be shifting more than I would expect.  The fact that you had to remove the whole coils system probably did not help either.   It is likely that there was no solution, but that is just a guess.

2.5" of sinking in does not seem like a whole lot, but that is almost 50% compression.  That definitely seems like more than Jason or I experience, and we weigh more that you (at least I do).  

I don't know how to judge what's proper compression and what's too much. I weigh less than you guys but have relatively wider hips, so... hard to know if that balances things out or not. Maybe my hips should sink in that much to accommodate the gap between waist & hips; but something just isn't working. Maybe the shoulder area is the problem.

Edited to add:
The photo of the woman lying on her side on the springs on this page from Royal-Pedic.com shows the support/alignment I'm looking for from the springs. (Maybe not a great photo, but you get the general idea. Similar photo at L&P's page on pocket coils.) I'm not getting that from my offset coils.

When I lie on my side on my springs -- with zero foam, quilting, etc., below the spring structure -- there's a pronounced curve in my spine. And my spine is generally fairly straight, no scoliosis, no disc problems, etc. (I laid a board vertically under the mattress to make sure that the foundation wasn't a factor, since it's not solid.)

At this point, I'm so turned around from all the experiments that I can't even tell for sure in which direction I'm out of alignment -- sometimes I think my shoulders aren't sinking in enough, and sometimes I think my shoulders are sinking in too much. (The bottom shoulder, on my side, feels crunched. If I push down on my bottom shoulder to raise myself up, then my spine finally straightens. I'm not sure how to interpret that.)  Either way, I am out of alignment on those coils. Which would make the search for toppers rather fruitless, I'd think.

I wonder if the LuraFlex open offset coils just don't work well for a skinny chick with an hourglass bone structure. Maybe the helicals get in the way? I have no clue.

My old mattress cost $300 in 1991, and I slept on it for 18 years, through my 30s and most of my 40s. It was uncomfortable for the last several years (I could feel the coils, and I woke up with numb or tingling arms & hands), but before that, I think it was fine. I don't remember it causing any back pain. It was probably a Bonnell-coil mattress, and it was on top of a real box spring.

So this makes me wonder more about the best coils for me: low-gauge Bonnell for firmness, or pocket coils for their ability to conform to the body? Sure wish there was some way other than endless trial & error to figure these things out.

I think Budgy needs to write a "Mattress Construction & Buying for Dummies" book. He can sell it to manufacturers and customers.

At any rate, I am done with this mattress. I've got 5" of latex on the foundation now, all of it medium or medium-firm.

I'm leaving off all the 14ILD stuff for now, athough I'm wondering if I could artificially firm it up by putting it in the heavy-duty cotton non-stretchy topper-cover I have from FBM (got it a couple years ago to use with the Overstock Dunlop topper).

When I look at that Royalpedic picture, it looks like she is sinking in at least 2" at the hip area and compressing the coils about 1/3.  If you are sinking in 2.5", that does not seem that different.  Are your shoulders not sinking in enough?  Some of the mattresses make the midsection firmer, so maybe that is what you want in order to get better alignment.

That might be the problem; I'm not sure.

When I'm on my side, the bottom shoulder feels crunched. If I push down on my bottom shoulder to raise myself up, then my spine straightens. 

I'm wondering if the springs -- even if they're in relatively decent condition overall -- could have started to wear down unevenly, since the mattress was resting on what is essentially a slatted foundation, not a real box spring. Dunno; just a thought.

The problem might just be that these offset coils are not the right kind of coils for me, and either pocket coils or old-fashioned Bonnell would be better.

The L&P 3-zone "Body Print" pocket-coil system uses 15.5-gauge wire for the top & bottom thirds of the mattress, and 15-gauge wire for the middle third. I don't know if that's enough of a difference to matter, and I don't know if 15-gauge would be too thin a wire to be durable. But it looks like Gardner Mattress uses these springs, and my impression from what I've read here is that Gardner makes good mattresses, so maybe these springs would be OK. (I don't live anywhere near Gardner; just using them as an example.)

No idea if the pocket coils in Simmons or Sealy mattresses are any good. (Never mind the rest of the junk in those; I'm just wondering about the coils themselves.)

Hard to say if that section is more worn out.   It will wear out faster because of the greater weight on it, but 2.5 years would be pretty quick.  If the wires holding the coils together are substandard (too thin or bad metal) or not fastened well, then when they go bad you would lose support from the surrounding coils as well.    Do the center of the coils feel softer than the head and feet?  

Are you sleeping on just the foam?  How is that working out?