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(Note added in March 2012: Gave up on the old mattress & bought a new one. Added to this thread for continuity.) ======================================= (Note added in Jan. 2012: The topper-search saga turned into a mattress-surgery saga. Mattress surgery details are farther down in the thread.) --------------------------------------------------------- I'm looking for opinions on the next way to tweak my toppers. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Here's the current setup: Stats: 50-year-old woman, about 5'6", 120-125 pounds; side and back sleeper, but mostly side. A little joint pain in the hips now and then, but no serious illnesses or injuries to work around (knock on wood). (The 2" 32ILD topper is a new purchase. I read some old forum threads that I'd saved on my PC; waffled between 32ILD and 28ILD; thought about getting an inch of each; but that was more expensive, and I was most worried about getting something that would turn out to be too soft, like my previous attempts, so I went with the 32ILD.) So: With just those 3" of latex, I think my hips & back are OK, but my shoulders still get too crunched and I wake up with some arm numbness. When I add my 1"-thick polyfill fiberbed on top of the latex, my shoulders are good, but my hips sink down a little too far -- because this fiberbed is several years old and has flattened in just the hip area -- so I wake up with some low back pain. (The rest of the fiberbed is still in great shape.) One option: I thought about getting a 1" 20ILD layer from FoamByMail and adding it on top of the 3" of latex I already have. Recent posts seem to imply that FBM's quality has gotten better and more reliable than when I was here on the forums 2 years ago. But: Since I pretty much bottom out on the 24ILD layer, I'm skeptical that a 20ILD layer would help or would balance things out. (If I put the 1" 24ILD layer on the floor, my bony hips & shoulders go right down to the floor. If I fold that topper in half and lie on that, I still go right down to the floor. That makes me wonder about all the posts I see about 19ILD and even 14ILD layers -- I can't quite fathom how those would be useful, so I'm curious about that.) Another option: Get scrap foam and add some just in the hip area, under the part of the fiberbed that has flattened. SLAB sells some scrap latex of various sizes and ILDs. Maybe something like a 28ILD scrap under the hips would work? Another option: A 1" 28ILD layer (or equivalent in 100% natural latex) between the 24 and the 32? I'd like to avoid memory foam for now, because of the off-gassing issue, but won't completely rule it out. Thoughts? Other ideas? Thanks! Edited to add: 1) A thing called "Oodles" that had latex "noodles" in it -- great idea but poor execution. It would have been terrific if it had had at least twice as many baffles in it to prevent the noodles from shifting around within each baffled section. I half-heartedly attempted to hand-sew in more baffles but didn't know what I was doing and the thing is big & awkward, so that didn't work. (I used it on top of the 24ILD topper.) 2) Below the 1" 24ILD topper -- a 2" Dunlop latex topper from Overstock.com, unknown ILD & manufacturer. Wonderful for a while... but then it cratered in the hip area. Did not think latex was supposed to do that, but it did. [Edited to add: this was medium-firm synthetic, or mostly synthetic, Dunlop. Natural stuff would hold up much better, I'm sure.] This message was modified Mar 15, 2012 by Catherine
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"I might order a few inches of 50 ild or 35 ild (or maybe a few inches of both) from FBM to use as a temporary core..."
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.
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JasonRatky wrote: 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..... 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. This message was modified Jan 24, 2012 by Catherine
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Great. They shouldn't be asking much if anything for it if you're picking it up. Let them put it on craigslist or something first & see how many people come to even look st a 10yo mattress, at any price. Especially if they're friends, and know what you've been through so far with yours, they'll just let you have it.
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. This message was modified Jan 25, 2012 by JasonRatky
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Haven't yet seen the mattress my friend is selling (she's been ill). I stopped in at Jamestown Mattress this afternoon, and found the visit sort of useful and sort of frustrating. I tried out one of the pocket-coil beds: the "Majestic Dream deluxe plush pocket coil w/2" latex/foam euro top (one-sided)." I asked the salesman about the coil gauge and about the description as "Luraflex" (because I thought "Lura-Flex" referred only to Leggett & Platt's open-offset coils). He said there's a Luraflex pocket-coil spring, too. (I'm still skeptical, because I can't find a single reference to Lura-Flex pocket coils on the Internet, and every instance of "Lura-Flex" I find refers to L&P's offset springs [PDF], but whatever). According to the spec sheet the salesman gave me, the gauge is 14 (matches what's on Jamestown's website). The salesman did say all their coils are made by L+P. The mattress felt comfortable, but the Dunlop latex is in the Euro-top. In the regular part of the mattress, there's still 1.5 lb PU foam -- don't know how much of it, but I'm guessing a couple inches at least, just based on the mattress height. (I didn't think to measure it, but it looked fairly standard.) There's more PU foam quilted into the case, along with the fire-barrier fabric. Seemed like there's so much foam in this mattress that I couldn't get an idea of how supportive the coils themselves are. I'd have to drive 2.5 hours to Jamestown, take a factory tour, and actually lie on the coils (if the company permits that) to find out. (They do give factory tours, which is kind of neat; I assume you'd have to call for an appointment.) The mattress (without foundation) is $1049. Well, that's the "sale" price; the "suggested retail" price on the sales tag is about double that. 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. 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. 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.] 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? 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.... This message was modified Jan 29, 2012 by Catherine
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Catherine wrote: Haven't yet seen the mattress my friend is selling (she's been ill). I stopped in at Jamestown Mattress this afternoon, and found the visit sort of useful and sort of frustrating. I tried out one of the pocket-coil beds: the "Majestic Dream deluxe plush pocket coil w/2" latex/foam euro top (one-sided)." I asked the salesman about the coil gauge and about the description as "Luraflex" (because I thought "Lura-Flex" referred only to Leggett & Platt's open-offset coils). He said there's a Luraflex pocket-coil spring, too. (I'm still skeptical, because I can't find a single reference to Lura-Flex pocket coils on the Internet, and every instance of "Lura-Flex" I find refers to L&P's offset springs [PDF], but whatever). According to the spec sheet the salesman gave me, the gauge is 14 (matches what's on Jamestown's website). The salesman did say all their coils are made by L+P. The mattress felt comfortable, but the Dunlop latex is in the Euro-top. In the regular part of the mattress, there's still 1.5 lb PU foam -- don't know how much of it, but I'm guessing a couple inches at least, just based on the mattress height. (I didn't think to measure it, but it looked fairly standard.) There's more PU foam quilted into the case, along with the fire-barrier fabric. Seemed like there's so much foam in this mattress that I couldn't get an idea of how supportive the coils themselves are. I'd have to drive 2.5 hours to Jamestown, take a factory tour, and actually lie on the coils (if the company permits that) to find out. (They do give factory tours, which is kind of neat; I assume you'd have to call for an appointment.) The mattress (without foundation) is $1049. Well, that's the "sale" price; the "suggested retail" price on the sales tag is about double that.
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. 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. 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.] 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? 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.... 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. |
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JasonRatky wrote: 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. 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.
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. 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.)
Otherwise 720 coils/full translates to ~880queen, 1100king. .... 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. 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. This message was modified Jan 31, 2012 by Catherine
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A couple days ago, I wrote: I tried out one of the pocket-coil beds: the "Majestic Dream deluxe plush pocket coil w/2" latex/foam euro top (one-sided)." I asked the salesman about the coil gauge and about the description as "Luraflex" (because I thought "Lura-Flex" referred only to Leggett & Platt's open-offset coils). He said there's a Luraflex pocket-coil spring, too. (I'm still skeptical, ... but whatever). According to the spec sheet the salesman gave me, the gauge is 14 (matches what's on Jamestown's website). OK, I know I'm being like a dog with a bone here, and I don't mean to be overly critical, but I wanted to know if I could trust the specs I was given the other day, and I get impatient when companies put incorrect info on their websites.* So I emailed someone in the bedding group at Leggett & Platt, and got a response the same night -- even though this person was on the road for a trade show. Impressive. And no, there is no Lura-Flex pocket-coil; Lura-Flex refers only to a specific design of offset coils made by L&P. I also emailed the main office of the mattress company and asked if the specs for their pocket-coil mattresses were correct. I got a response the next morning (today, actually) saying that no, their website needs to be changed. It was quite a thorough response, with all the specs for the mattress. So that was handy. (Turns out, those mattresses use L&P's "Tri-Zone Body Print" pocket coils (PDF); gauges are 15 and 15-1/2. I suspect I'd want something heavier than that, but that's just a guess.) And here's some info (also from Jamestown) that might be useful for anyone looking at Dunlop latex. If you see just "D" followed by numbers, here's what the ILD correlations are (at least from one manufacturer; don't know which one): D75 Soft: ILD 16-18 (Guess I should have used "Dragnet" as a username here. You know.... "Just the facts, ma'am." This message was modified Jan 31, 2012 by Catherine
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Not an update exactly; just a couple of tidbits. * Jamestown Mattress will custom-make a zippered mattress case (at least with their conventional materials; not sure about the wool-and-cotton case). I still don't know what I'm doing next, but it's nice to know this option is there. They even gave me info about how they'd handle the fire barrier in the zipper area. (I'm just not sure they have any springs I'd like.) * My temporary setup (stacks of latex toppers over dacron, over luan, on my steel-and-wood foundation) has been hurting my shoulders and my back, right between the shoulder blades. I have the luan cut in 3 pieces, so yesterday I removed the piece that goes across the head-and-shoulders area, and then put everything back. Not a complete solution, but I think it helped a little last night. The only reason this is remotely worth posting about is just that I'm fascinated that something below 8" of latex can be felt. Or even, in essence, below 5" of medium to medium-firm latex, because the top 3" use that super-soft 14 ILD stuff, which I crash right through. (Across the hip area, I'm using the yoga mat 3" down from the top, and another piece of luan 5" down from the top, for some artificial zoning.) So, I'm beginning to understand the reasoning behind those adjustable-slat foundations... maybe... I think.... Doesn't mean I'm gonna run out and buy one -- not sure they're even available for full-size beds -- I just like getting a little better understanding of these things. This message was modified Feb 1, 2012 by Catherine
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So, this is sorta interesting (to me): I just spoke with Sean at SleepEZ, because I was thinking of trying a couple inches of the 22-24 natural Talalay latex (to use instead of this too-soft 14 ILD stuff; that was an expensive mistake). We talked for a bit; I told him about the mattress surgery, about the stack of various toppers I'm sleeping on now, and about the difficulties of balancing support with pressure relief (i.e., if hips are OK, my shoulders get crunched); and he said he wouldn't recommend a latex mattress for me. He thinks I'll do better using latex over springs; and he advised finding a continuous-coil innerspring (with at least 660 coils for a full-size mattress) and *avoiding* pocket coils because they might let the hips sink too far. Huh. I was almost ready to pull the trigger on the topper (it would have been returnable), but he thought I'd be wasting my money. He was very generous with his time, and said to call back if I have any more questions. I can see why he has such a great reputation on this board. He asked if I'd tried putting the soft latex under the medium latex. I have -- I've tried just about every configuration imaginable -- but I might not have tried putting the 14 ILD on the very bottom of my current stack. I doubt that it will help much, because it's *so* soft, but I might try it just for the heck of it. Or not.... I had mentioned that I wasn't sure if latex would work for me without zoning, and he said "zoning defeats the purpose of using latex." Interesting point of view. I didn't really want to mess with the zoning attempts anymore, but I did like the idea of an all-latex mattress -- or at least a mattress without any poly foam, polyester, poly-anythng, or chemical fire retardents. There was something else... oh, I said I wasn't sure if latex wasn't working for me because it just won't work for me or if it's because I have a weird collection of the wrong ILDs and just don't have the *right* latex for me. Apparently the former; he still recommended using springs. So... back to the drawing board... and the search for springs.
I've been re-reading old posts on the forum, and I believe the user named Kait has a build similar to mine (in height, weight, & general proportions), and she had similar problems finding a balance between pressure relief & back support. If I remember correctly, she did not like pocket coils (not enough support for her back) and wound up using a 12-gauge offset coil (in a custom-made mattress complete with cotton batting), with maybe a fiberbed of some sort over the bed. Hmmmm......
Budgy says he doesn't even carry anything with continuous coil springs (see post #26 in this thread). Another tidbit from Budgy, in that same thread: "Continuous coils used by Serta are very light weight; they might have high spring counts but they are low on the # of turns in the wire with an average or thinner than average steel." Good to know. Lots of good info from Budgy in that thread. Different experts (Sean & Budgy), very different opinions about continuous coils. (Sean didn't recommend a brand; just recommended continuous coils in general, for me.) Oh, the joys of mattress shopping.... I wish there were mattress stores that let people try out just the springs -- without all the foam & upholstery & all that on top -- so we could each figure out the best kind of coils for ourselves.
-------- (When I bought my mattress in 2009, I thought I *was* getting 660 coils [different kind of coil], so I'm a tad miffed about winding up with 522. Hmph.)
------- And yet another post of mine turns into a dissertation.... Big surprise. This message was modified Feb 2, 2012 by Catherine
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"We talked for a bit; I told him about the mattress surgery, about the stack of various toppers I'm sleeping on now, and about the difficulties of balancing support with pressure relief (i.e., if hips are OK, my shoulders get crunched); and he said he wouldn't recommend a latex mattress for me. He thinks I'll do better using latex over springs; and he advised finding a continuous-coil innerspring (with at least 660 coils for a full-size mattress) and *avoiding* pocket coils because they might let the hips sink too far. "
Now that guy sounds like he knows what he's talking about! |