Mattress Forum

I bought a metal bed with a really cheesy set of supports, that I think was sagging and causing back pain.   

So I replaced it with plywood, supported by 2x4s - seriously sturdy.   Of course, as you point out, I had to address moisture issues.    So I got a spade bit and drilled at least a hundred 1+" holes in it.   I *think* it's enough, haven't noticed any moisture, or seen any mold, on the bottom of my foam.   I keep thinking I should drill more sometime ...

I've thought about doing that -- or just getting some pegboard, if that's sturdy enough. (I think it would be, since it'd be resting on top of my foundation, not directly on the bed frame). I'd probably put it under a sheet or inside my allergen casing or something, so it's not directly under the mattress.

Gonna check the bed-frame slats next and then get back to work....Well, what do you know... got me some dips there.* (I flipped the dipping slats over.)

I'll have to add a few more slats to the bed frame, probably, and see about rigging up some sort of center support** from the bottom. The center support would have to rest on the floor, because there's nothing it can attach to on the bed frame.

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* Even when my innerspring mattress is directly on the floor, the coils do not feel supportive enough, so I don't know how much of a factor those little dips were. The foundation seems quite sturdy.

** Or get something like the "adjustable center leg bed frame support" gizmo from Woodcraft (but I'd need a few of them), or some sort of steel support gizmo from The Sleep Shop (they have several options), or some sort of steel center support from Planet Bed (their "V-Rail" thing looks neat but might be overkill for me).

Those "BedBeam" things look very sturdy, but I don't think they'd work with my bed frame (ditto for some of these other metal support systems). My cross-slats aren't attached to the rails; they lie *on* the rails (or on the "cleats" if that's the proper term for that small ledge on each rail), so they're about a half-inch higher. The BedBeams and Metal Support Slats look like they're meant to be flush with the rails/cleats/ledges/whatever they're called, so I'd have to add half-inch-high blocks of wood under them where they'd attach to the ledges if I want to use them with my wooden slats (rather than instead of them).

Ditto with the Strong Arm Center Supports and these Mighty Lift supports; I'd have to shim them if I want to use them in addition to my slats, rather than instead of my slats. I guess these things & the BedBeams are intended to replace the wooden slats. (Um... duh?)

The Lazarbeam Center Support would work with the slats I have, since it's just meant to help keep them up.

So... replace the wooden slats with steel slats (that could get expensive); get something like the Lazarbeam; use those standalone things from Woodcraft; or find a very low-tech way to add center support to my wooden slats?

I could just get a long sturdy piece of lumber and give it a few sturdy "legs." Since any mattress I get is going to rest on the self-contained foundation, rather than on the bed-frame slats, I don't think I have to worry about the frame getting bowed outward to the sides. (Do I?)

(Pardon all my thinking-out-loud here. Those steel support systems are not returnable, so I don't want to get stuck with something that turns out not to work because I forgot some important detail, like, you know, how my bed frame is actually constructed.)

Of course, when I add the center support, I'll have to find another place to put the mattress, which is now stashed under my bed. It'll have to lean up against a wall somewhere or just go out to the curb.

Yesterday I covered the foundation with a sheet of luan so I wouldn't feel the metal grid from the foundation poking me. (Luan was probably not the best choice, but it was cheap, I didn't see any decent-looking pegboard, and I was delirious from lack of sleep. If I need something different later, I'll get what's needed.)   So now I have the Novabond mat under the luan, and the 2 sheets of Dacron from the mattress over that, and then my latex & my old thin fiberbed. (So now I feel a solid hard surface instead of metal wires; a different sort of discomfort but preferable to the wires... I think.)

I might order a few inches of 50 ILD or 35 ILD (or maybe an inch or two of both) from FBM to use as a temporary mattress core under my latex. If that's comfortable enough, it'll give me time to recover from the months of sleep deprivation & mattress-caused pain, and I'll be in better shape to decide if I want to stick with a PU foam base, go for a Dunlop core, or try another innerspring.  That's the hope, anyway. We'll see how things go.

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Added Monday AM: Last night I added one more inch of latex, using the stuff I'd tried zoning with (14 ILD, 32 ILD, 14 ILD; put below the 24 ILD and N3/27 ILD layers). Not wonderful, but it helped enough with pressure points that I might not need the temporary poly-foam core. Not quite sure yet. (Still some lower back pain, but I don't know if it's from the latex, from the dacron being worn out, from my slightly dippy slats, or from a combination of those. Shoulders were much better this morning, though.)

Um... did I say "easy"? Yeah, right.

I've got four of those adjustable center support thingies attached to a 6-foot pine 1"x4", and that's under all the slats now. And may I just say... what a freakin' pain in the a--.

The screws that came with each support were too long -- I didn't want them poking through the other side of the 1x4 -- so I had to go buy different screws. And you have to really wail on the rubber bottoms of those supports with a hammer to get the one piece inserted into the other. And I thought I finally had each support adjusted to the right height before I put the foundation back on the bed, but I still wound up on my back on the floor, under the bed (not much clearance there), using my crescent wrench, at all sorts of odd angles, to adjust the height of each support some more. And the supports don't seem particularly stable, at least on a hardwood floor -- maybe they'd work better if they sank into some carpet.

Also, while moving my torch lamp from my office to see how long the cord was, to see if it would reach into the bedroom so I could maybe see what I was doing while drilling starter holes and screwing the metal supports into the pine, I managed to topple the lamp over and send shards of glass all over -- in the office, down the hall, into my bedroom, and into the room at the other end of the hall. (All swept & vacuumed up now.... I hope.) So now I need to replace an $80 lamp that I really liked. 

Obviously there are much worse problems in the world, but I am not a happy camper right now.

Those supports and that 6' piece of pine better do their job, and I better be able to rule out dipping slats as a cause of any sink holes appearing in any mattress that ever goes on that bed. (So there!)

Man, I'm tired of wrestling with this stuff..... I'm lucky to be physically able to wrestle with this stuff, but I am tired of wrestling with it.

No decisions on the next mattress yet, either. Back still hurts; hip still hurts.

But the finger that got gouged a couple weeks ago appears to be healing with minimal scarring, so that's something.

Definitely, once you get your frame/supports situation under control, go for it.  err on the side of too firm with those.. And it might not be temporary after all. Even if it is, at this point I'd try any solution that potentially provides pain free sleep as priority one, with longevity being way down the list.  But I've accepted mattresses as more of consumables, & don't care if I end up having to buy a new one every few years if it otherwise works.

I sure hope the frame/supports situation is under control now!

I do need to do something soon, that's for sure. I was holding off on ordering the foam until I had a chance to look at a 10-year-old barely used innerspring-mattress-and-box-spring set that friends are selling. Thought I'd see it this weekend, but we're having scheduling difficulties.

I also did some research on flame retardants and got myself thoroughly confused.... No idea if conventional mattresses made before the 2007 regulation use any less-toxic materials than mattresses made after that.

Trying not to do so much research that I let "the perfect be the enemy of the good," but I don't want to waste more money, either. There's a fine line there... somewhere.....

Unfortunately flame retardants & toxins haven't even been on my radar. Just so long as it doesn't have a strong smell, can't deal with that, it's been even further down the list of priorities than longevity.  Hopefully sticking purely with what works for comfort & pain free sleep at the expense of everthing else doesn't cost me down the line, but I probably have one of the least natural setups here.  

No idea if this really is a sale price or if this company is now playing the same game that City Mattress and other big retailers play, where there's always a "sale." (I don't think they were doing that when I bought my mattress from them in 2009, but I couldn't swear to it.) Their products page has a banner ad saying "Get 50% off our entire line of better and best comfort-level mattress models. Plus, shop today and you'll receive a free guest room mattress set. TODAY THROUGH SUNDAY" -- That ad, complete with "today through Sunday," has been there at least since New Year's. So... um... Which Sunday?
 

There's a non-Euro-top pocket-coil mattress, too, which I'd meant to lie on but forgot to. It uses just PU foam (1.8 lb in the mattress, 1.5 and 1.2 lb quilted into the case); no latex.

I also lay on their "Nature's Cloud Classic Latex (one-sided)" mattress -- it's just 6" of 24-26 ILD Dunlop, in a wool-and-organic-cotton case. It's nice. Firmer feeling than I expected. Probably fine for the hips; a little tough on my shoulders. (I think the ILD is comparable to my 2" Overstock topper, but it's hard to tell from 2" of it how 6" will feel.)  That one is $1099 for the set (mattress & wood foundation); I forgot to ask how much just the mattress is. Prices were not listed separately on the sale tags.

All of the tags listed "suggested retail" and "sale" prices. None of them listed specs. The salesman was very nice, & tried to be helpful, and he gave me spec sheets. These sheets just list the contents of each mattress, though (like "1.5 lb polyurethane foam"); they don't say how much of each component is in there. There are no cut-aways showing the innards of the various mattresses.

Although there is not as much info as I would like on the spec sheets, the company definitely gets major points for being straightforward and saying "1.5 lb polyurethane foam" instead of some made-up marketing-hype no-clue-what-it-means name like the "S" brands do.

Oh, and the salesman said all the coil counts given are for full-size mattresses.

I saw some Euro tops with zippers there, so I wonder if Jamestown would make a custom mattress cover with a zipper.

I didn't even mention custom mattresses, but the salesman sort of pre-emptively discouraged that, saying "you don't know what it's going to feel like until you get it." Well.... yeah... but that doesn't mean it's not worth looking into.


I'm all for supporting local independent manufacturers, when feasible, but I'm wondering if the bulk of this company's products are really much different from the conventional "S"-brand mattresses. There's a bunch of 1.5 lb PU in several of their mattresses. (I'm assuming that's too low-density to hold up, but I don't know for sure; specs don't say whether the foam is regular, HR, Lux, or whatever.) 

The warranty sheet says:  "Today's newer, plusher mattresses will show slight body impressions with up to 1-1/4" being considered normal. For this reason, flip and rotate your mattress every few weeks when it is brand new." [I don't consider an inch+ to be "slight," but I gather that this is normal in the industry now.]

The warranty has a special section titled "Body Impressions on the Surface": "Your new, thick mattress will require special care and understanding of its construction for you to fully enjoy it in the years to come. It is completely different from your old mattress in construction, feel, and appearance. It will not feel or wear like your old mattress. Body impressions are normal occurrences that are to be expected in this type of construction and do not indicate a structural failure or defect. ...  This mattress has more upholstery layers than the old-style mattresses. The more fill you have, the more settling you will have. ... You purchased this mattress because of its thick, plush look and feel. It is only logical that it will conform to your body with normal use. This mattress will need frequent turning for you to receive the best wear possible."

So, I'm reading this as saying, basically, "We put a lot more foam in these things than we used to, so of course it's going to crater after a while."  Am I being unfair? They do make some all-latex mattresses and some two-sided flippable mattresses. (The one I cut open was two-sided with minimal padding and it still didn't work for me, but maybe the offset coils aren't the best kind for me, or maybe I needed more coils and/or thicker steel. Who knows?)

There's also this in the warranty: "Your bedding will be replaced or repaired should your mattress be defective due to faults in our workmanship or structural defects in materials... under the following conditions:" -- followed by 6 conditions, most of which seem reasonable. But #4 is "The customer will be expected to pay all costs for transportation and handling of bedding." Huh. Is that normal?

A big part of my interest here is just the geeky kind; I'm interested not just in mattress construction but in the business itself. I think this company might be missing a great opportunity to truly distinguish itself from the competition.


The salesman there today has been in the mattress business for 30 years and has sold all sorts of mattresses -- he thinks Simmons still makes good mattresses. (I did not mention cheap foam or mattress surgery.) Because he'd been in the business for so long, I was hoping he'd have some idea of why the 14.5-gauge offset coils did not work for me, but he had no idea. Just said that pocket coils are more conforming. He was very nice, though, and he did his best to be helpful. (And he didn't hover, and there was no hard sell at all.) And we somehow wound up talking about our cats for a while, and it's always pleasant to meet another cat-lover.
 

I have so much latex here already that I'm still tempted to get some 22 ILD Talalay from SleepEZ or Arizona Mattress Co. to put on the top of my stack (and get rid of this awful 14 ILD stuff) and get a 3" firm Dunlop core. I'd be all set then -- IF I don't need zoning. Still not sure about that. I also like the idea of finding a good pocket-coil base and a zippable cover, and putting my latex in that.

(If I ever say that I'm thinking about trying a Flobeds VZone, somebody please slap me upside the head. I'm sure it's a wonderful product... but not for someone who already suffers from Mattress OCD. I'd never stop rearranging layers & pieces. I mean, I can't even stop researching this stuff.... )

Oh she's ill. Well in that case nevermind trying to get it out of her for free I guess- although really that's fair if you're hauling a 10yo mattress away for her.

How much was their nature's cloud that was borderline too firm?  Great that it doesn't put much if any other foams between you & the latex, & they don't get any more firm once you get them home. only less so over time.  

Otherwise 720 coils/full translates to ~880queen, 1100king.  If you're trying to correlate that 1.5lb PU into Sealy's terminology, it's probably equivalent to their standard "sealyfoam"(1.2lb is "supersoft sealyfoam", lux "marvelux", omalon "omalux" etc.), but who knows. At least they give you that much from the specs. And yeah it sounds like any logistics involved in the warranty will be on your dime, assuming you can meet the other qualifiers.  I don't put much stock in warranties anyway.  I say at this point if you found something that will work for you out of the box, forget about warranties, coil counts, foam densities etc. & go for it- so long as they have a little to no penalty return policy one of those are as good a shot as any.

I'd want to pay her something for it one way or the other, because it's been used so little that it might as well be brand new (guests almost always use the other guest room and therefore a different bed & mattress). But yeah, these friends are having more than their fair share of difficulties right now, and they have always been very generous, so even if they tried to give it to me for free, I'd be wanting to pay them something.

The set was about $1100. I'd have to call or stop in again to find out what just the mattress costs. Probably $900-ish.

I mostly wanted to just see how that one feels, to get an idea of what I'd need for a base if I go all-latex by adding to what I already have (that is actually useful), which is several inches of medium to medium-firm stuff. I'd only need a few inches of firm stuff on the bottom and a couple inches of medium-soft stuff on the top. If I got the Nature's Cloud Classic, I'd still need something softer on top of it, for my shoulders, and wouldn't have a use for the medium latex I already have, unless I cut it up for zoning. (The wool and cotton mattress case would be nice, though.)

The pocket-coil mattress seemed pretty decent overall. Although again, I'd rather find a way to use what I have, if I can. (Might not be feasible, but I want to be sure, one way or the other, before spending $1K on a new mattress.) I'd like to be able to buy just a zippered case and the pocket coils, like what Bay Bed in CA offers.

Funny: Even with all my research & reading the fine print, I don't know what Jamestown's return policy is. It's not stated in the warranty, and I haven't seen it on the website. So I'd have to ask about that, too. There's a 30-day "comfort policy" -- "Your bedding will be modified, rebuilt, or upgraded..." -- but I don't see an actual return policy. I'm guessing no returns.