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Jim asked some good questions in another thread. Instead of Hijacking that thread I've decided to start a new one for the answers and discussion. Here's a link to the original thread: http://www.whatsthebest-mattress.com/forum/mattress-surgery-performing-foam-ectomy-my-englander-mattress-w-photos/6161-0-1.html Here's some of the questions regarding modern mattresses answered: 1) Is Stearns and Foster not owned by Sealy? They are in fact. They do not, however, use the same coil systems, same foam systems, or the same construction. You are either certified to work on Stearns and Foster OR Sealy. You never make both. Other than the fact that they are often made within 100 yards of eachother and your money goes to the same company, they have virtually nothing in common from a feel or construction standpoint. 2) So you are saying that S&F and Sealy make their own coils, they are not manufactured by L&P? The short answer is no, L&P does not make Sealy or Stearn's coil. The long answer is it depends whether we're ACTUALLY talking about Sealy's coil. If you see a bed and it's labeled "Sealy" instead of "Sealy Posturepedic" it does NOT have the Sealy Posturepedic coil in it. It has an inexpensive Bonnell coil that is well suited for spare bedrooms, kids beds, or cheap short term solutions. L&P does in fact make these coils but NOT the Sealy Posturpedic coils. Both current versions of the Stearns and Foster coil are made by that division of Sealy. 3) Are the S&F coils different than the Sealys? Completely. The Sealy Posturpedic coil is a triple offset interlaced 5-turn 14ga coil that's been dual heat tempered. Interlaced is a fancy way of saying that the coils are connected together instead of individual. Interlaced coils provide more of a deep firm or deep flat support type of feel. The offset means the coil looks more like an egg than a circle. The egg shape more evenly distributes your way and keeps it from concentrating on a specific point. This is important because whenever you push down on a bed the bed pushes right back up at you with the same force. With a circle coil like a Bonnel that force is concentrated creating a more pronounced pressure point. Heat tempering is the difference between a paperclip and a fish hook. It determines how many times and how completely the spring comes back. Interlaced coil systems such as this tend to be slightly (not overwhelmingly) more preferred by stomach and back sleepers. Stearns and Foster currently fields two types of coils. In their Core line they use a 14ga individually wrapped (individually pocketed is patented by Simmons) coil. Individual coils are not attached by metal to the coils next to them. This allows a coil to conform to your shape more completely. More of a "hug" type of feel instead of a "deep support". Stearns and Foster Estate is their flagshop coil. Each coil is actually two. There's a bigger 15ga outer coil and a smaller 13ga inner coil. the effect is that the lighter parts of your body only engage the outer thin coil and the bed feels softer. The heavier parts engage both coils and feel firmer. A lot of people want the "Soft on top, firm underneath" feel. This is the only actual coil design capable of providing that. Other manufacturers simulate it with various types of foam. Do you happen to know what gauge the S&F coils are, how many turns, etc.? The Core series coils are 5 turns. The Estate series coils are 5 turns on the bigger outside coil and 11 turns on the smaller inside coil. The outside is 15ga the inside is 13ga. Is it a Bonnell type? Stearns and Sealy Posturpedic are both offset. Are Simmons springs now substantially different or better than they were, say 10 years ago? Most spring systems underwent a pretty substantial change in 2005 when beds became unflippable. Before this time springs had to be symmetrical around the central axis so you could flip it. Modern springs are one-sided and allow for a far superior design. In short, yes. That said, Simmons uses individually pocketed springs. It's a great spring system for some people. If the combined weight of you and your partner is less than, say, 380 pounds the individual springs may be a good option for you. If, however, you're more like me and the combined weight of you and your other on the bed is more like 500 pounds you will rip through those poor 15.25ga individual springs. If you're bigger and really love Individual Springs you may want to try the thicker Stearns and Foster or a Simmons Firm. The Firm levels of Simmons use 13ga coils instead of 15.25ga. I was told, even transporting them around turns or at slants would cause damage to them. Is that still true today? or are they tied and placed differently now? Modern Simmons sew their pockets together where old ones used to glue them together. The glue was the source of those problems. Are you saying that the top of the line more expensive mattresses in the "S" brands use a higher quality foam? Yes. Even if they do use PU or PE foam, not all PU or PE foam is created equal. For the most part the mid level of a major manufacturer (Mid being $1300 or so in a queen) will use reasonable quality latexes or memory foams atop a PU or PE base. All beds will have some PU or PE you wouldn't want to put the comfort foams directly atop the springs. |
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Alexander, thanks for the info. I started another thread about S&F before I read this one. After you mentioned them I went to their web site and looked around, but could not find the answers you gave here. In my new thread I did ask some questions about the foam they use, though, and would appreciate it if you could answer those questions. You state here, "For the most part the mid level of a major manufacturer (Mid being $1300 or so in a queen) will use reasonable quality latexes or memory foams atop a PU or PE base. All beds will have some PU or PE you wouldn't want to put the comfort foams directly atop the springs." So are you saying that most or all of the S brands (Serta, Spring Air, Sealy P, etc.) do use more supportive foam than what I found in my cheapo Englander and cheapo Sealy, if you buy the more expensive units (above $1300 or so in a Queen)? Is that more expensive foam at least the quality of HR? Or would it be lower quality than HR? Is their memory foam at least the quality of Sensus, or any good 4-5lb memory foam, or is it less than that quality? What strikes me about the cheaper mattresses is that they have nothing but soft foam in them, on top of the springs. How can that NOT hurt a customer's back? Why couldn't they at least put a decent piece of 1" HR foam on top of the springs? Is it really that much more money? (I think not based on my own personal experience of buying HR foam at a local foam distributor.) And what strikes me even more inexcusable (and I wonder how the "more expensive units" you mention fare in this respect) is how they can install, say, 5" of this very cheap PU foam which provides no support into a "luxury" or "plush" model, and send a buyer home with that, knowing that it cannot possibly give them good support, and likely will hurt their backs in a very short time when it breaks down. If I were working in a retail store I would have to tell my customers, "Look, I canNOT sell you that mattresss! It's junk! It's just going to hurt your back! PLEASE buy a higher end bed such as a _________, OR buy the firm model and add your own toppers to soften it up, because the foam in this one is just not going to give you any support or comfort." And if I were a company such as Sealy or Serta or Spring Air, I would just not make mattresses that are going to hurt people's backs due to lack of support. I'd spend a little more on some decent foam at least for a support layer. The 2¾" of foam I added into my Englander after I did my foam-ectomy only cost me about $80-90, altogether. Granted I bought most of it at a distributor and I bought the Venus foam at overstock.com for a good price. But surely a manufacturer could buy it at half what I paid. So are you telling me that Englander, and other companies cannot put this kind of foam into a bed and still sell it for around $300-400 for a Queen? Wouldn't they then be able to win the market by saying, "Look! WE use QUALITY foams!" ? Doing the "foam-ectomy" on my Englander and replacing their foam with my foam has made a WORLD OF DIFFERENCE in the mattress! Now it is the most comfortable mattress I have slept on in over a year, maybe in 10 years. I wont' know for sure until I see how it lasts. Even good foams tend to break in and sometimes I find that what felt great for a week or a month does not feel good after 2 months... But at least it feels good NOW, whereas when I bought it, it felt like crap after a couple nights. I just don't get why they are making and selling so many junky mattresses. Doesn't it hurt their overall reputation? Wouldn't it be ultimately better for the company if ALL their mattresses - from the lowest to the highest priced models - at least had a basic decent quality to it? When you put 5" of low quality foam in a mattress, it just cannot be considered a good product and certainly will only lead to your company having a bad reputation. No? This message was modified Sep 6, 2009 by jimsocal
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The trick is buying a mattress for what it's designed for. A good, honest salesman (They do exist, they just aren't always the norm) will tell you if a bed is designed with spare bedrooms, kid's bedrooms, and cheap solutions in mind. That bed that hurts your back for $400? It's great for grandma's spare bedroom for the once every 4 months that the kids come to visit. Especially on grandma's social security. And that's what a good salesguy will tell you: "This bed is a good bed for some, not for you". A salesguy can't come out and say, "Listen buddy, this bed sucks. You don't want it, it's a piece of crap." because 1) It's not true. It's great for grandma's spare bedroom and 2) You then begin to wonder why the salesguy works for a company willing to sell "crap" beds. Salesguys have kids and mortgages too. So far as the alteration of your Englander and the $100 foam, look at it this way. I recently decided that I needed a new computer. I did some research with respected companies and configured an Alienware that I loves for $2200. I then spent the next month researching component parts, quality of individual distributers, ratings and reviews for every single part that makes up a PC. I ordered the individual pieces from Newegg and built an identical rig for $900. Could Alienware therefore have sold me the same system for $900? Absolutely not. They have to pay the people that put it together. They have to pay for advertising. They have to pay for distribution, market research, etc. It will always generally be far cheaper to make something yourself if you can purchase the component pieces and have the knowledge. But how much was my time worth? I probably spent 35 hours of research to really become an expert on every component of the PC that I was building. Let's say I make $72,000 a year. That means I make an average of $36 an hour. Take that times 35 hours and the "real" cost of my rig was $1260 + $900 or $2160. I didn't really save much at all. Subsequent machines I build will take less research now, of course, but the point is still there. So far as only making quality products go, virtually every manufacturer out there needs to make what they call a "wide spectrum" product. There will always be some college kid that only has $300 for a queen mattress or some poor mother spending $100 for the first twin mattress for her toddler son. |
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Alex, you make some good points. And I'm sure if you were a salesman, you would guide a person to buy a quality mattress, not junk. Of course, I PLANNED on doing a foam-ectomy on my Englander. I told the guy in the store I was going to do it, much to his surprise (or horror? or confusion?!). I did stil have a LITTLE hope at that point, that the mattress had, say a 1½" layer of HR foam on top instead of the 1½" layer of cheap pu foam. But I was not surprised that I had to do a foamectomy on it, not at all. It was just a matter of time. I expected I might get a month or two or six out of it before it had to go under the knife, but it was nevertheless something I planned to do all along. I totally understand your KIA analogy and your computer analogy. Surely they do have to make "lower priced", "lower quality" models. But what I keep seeing is that they are selling tons of very nice looking mattresses with 5" of pu foam on top and people are going home and hurting from these mattresses! I think I posted it already, but again I have to say, "Okay, fine, it's a cheap mattress. I don't expect MUCH from it. But how much more would it cost to put 1½" of GOOD HR foam on top instead of 1½" of junky pu foam? What would it cost? Another $20? Wouldn't that be the best way to do it, to have a good product instead of one that is junk? And as for the pillowtop issue: If I were a mattress company I would just make it a point that my sales people and my advertising TELL people: "Look! A pillow top is going to hurt your back unless we use high quality latex and memory foam for it and that's going to cost a lot more money!" OR, just emphasize a good quality Firm or Ultra Firm mattress, and have the memory foam/ latex toppers installed ON the mattress in the store and sell those separately! Be honest and say, "Look, if we put the foam inside the mattress it's going to break down and you'll have to get a new mattress in a few months or a year. Instead you need to buy a Quality topper of latex and/or memory foam to get the feel you want on top of our firm supportive mattress." I don't know. Do you get what I'm saying? It just seems to me that the mattress industry is cutting its own throat when they sell junky pillowtops that hurt people's backs. p.s. One more thing: WHY do they always add that 1/2" or so of cheap foam sewn to material and tufted or quilted? Who started that and why? Seems to me those tops are NEVER a good thing. I would have liked to have cut my Englander on just 3 sides and kept the top in place, but really I just hate the way that tufted top piece feels, so I had to cut it off and throw it away with the rest of the cheap PU foam. This message was modified Sep 6, 2009 by jimsocal
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jimsocal wrote: I totally understand your KIA analogy and your computer analogy. Surely they do have to make "lower priced", "lower quality" models. But what I keep seeing is that they are selling tons of very nice looking mattresses with 5" of pu foam on top and people are going home and hurting from these mattresses! I think I posted it already, but again I have to say, "Okay, fine, it's a cheap mattress. I don't expect MUCH from it. But how much more would it cost to put 1½" of GOOD HR foam on top instead of 1½" of junky pu foam? What would it cost? Another $20? Wouldn't that be the best way to do it, to have a good product instead of one that is junk? In honesty? An inch and a half of premium quality PU or PE foam? It'd take a $500 retail bed to about $800. That's assuming they kept the lower quality spring systems...which they generally don't. Why put good expensive foam on cheap Bonnel coils? To put the decent foam on a set of mature coils? Takes the bed to about 1200ish. the early S&F core stuff starts at about that range for a queen set. I can add 4 gigs of RAM to my PC for $20. Increasing the RAM by 4 gigs when I have Alienware put it in my new computer they're building for me ups the price by $200. |
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Alexander wrote: In honesty? An inch and a half of premium quality PU or PE foam? It'd take a $500 retail bed to about $800. That's assuming they kept the lower quality spring systems...which they generally don't. Why put good expensive foam on cheap Bonnel coils? To put the decent foam on a set of mature coils? Takes the bed to about 1200ish. the early S&F core stuff starts at about that range for a queen set. I can add 4 gigs of RAM to my PC for $20. Increasing the RAM by 4 gigs when I have Alienware put it in my new computer they're building for me ups the price by $200. Well, thanks for the honest answer. Seems a little crazy but I get what you're saying. Maybe this is why China is outdoing us, maybe they can do things like this cheaper...? I still would make the argument that they'd better change something about the way they're making mattresses because they are giving their own companies bad names by putting 5" of cheap polyurethane foam on top and selling it as a pillow top, only to have the customer hate it and bad-mouth it within a week. |
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Are you saying that even though Sealy and Stearns & Foster are made in the same plant, they are not by the same people? Quilting? Are you saying that Stearns and Fosters pocketed coil is an offset coil? Are you saying that Simmons is no longer gluing their pocketed coil and instead are sewing them? I believe that if this what you are saying that it is incorrect. Can anyone from Sealy or Simmons respond? |
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Why do you feel that Bonnell coils are cheap and only for a spare/child's bedroom? True, they are the earliest model of springs and are therefore rather simple in design, but if you had some double heat tempered heavy gauge wire coils topped with good foam it should be a good, long lasting bed. I think the coil structure is so personal. You love pocket coils topped with latex. I find latex too boingy and pocket coils dont' feel good to me. I like offset coils(at least that is what I found helped my back heal in that hotel). But you are considerably heavier than I am so that makes a difference. There are so many things that make a difference in beds, and that is the hard part about finding the correct bed. I would be less worried about what is in a bed if I hadn't made so many expensive mistakes. And I disagree with the premise that if you buy a very expensive bed(say $4k and up) you get more quality. I have heard that the Chatham and Wells beds are just heaped with foam...that will break down like foam does. Those are some pricey beds. Kait |
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The chances that foam will break down are heavily dependant upon the type of foam being used. You can't really make a label that all foam is bad. Case in point, Tempurpedic is an all foam bed. Unlike virtually every manufacturer out there they only require 3/4" sag (body impression) in your mattress to trigger their warranty. The rest of the industry requires a 1.5" sag. Despite this and despite being all foam Tempurpedics have the lowest warranty redemption rate in the industry. It's all in the type and quality. -Alex |
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"The chances that foam will break down are heavily dependant upon the type of foam being used. You can't really make a label that all foam is bad. Case in point, Tempurpedic is an all foam bed. Unlike virtually every manufacturer out there they only require 3/4" sag (body impression) in your mattress to trigger their warranty. The rest of the industry requires a 1.5" sag. Despite this and despite being all foam Tempurpedics have the lowest warranty redemption rate in the industry. It's all in the type and quality." I didn't say or mean to imply that "all foam is bad". It is merely a product that has a life. Longer or shorter, depending on quality and use. It really is about the bubbles! Actually, I did buy some high quality memory foam toppers to go with mattresses. I did also find that even with good memory foam I was able to make the "butt-dent" area wear prematurely. You could not see the wear, but it stopped being supportive. I am 5'6" and weigh 125#, carried primarily in that area. That is my main issue with my sleeping comfort. What happens is that that area sinks and stops being supportive, causing my low back to seize up(presumably trying to hold my body in alignment all night...heckuva stress for the lumbar region). I am also in a conundrum as I have super wide shoulders and a narrow waist/ribcage so have to have a bed that has enough padding to cuddle without dropping the weight too far. I also caused the same wear in an all-latex mattress, a S& F Bruno Clair, two Restonics, one Stress-o-pedic....about $7500 worth of failed sleep tools altogether...which doesn't even count trying to have one bed re-made...plus toppers.... Kait This message was modified Sep 10, 2009 by Kait
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