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Oh dear. At Sears.com I purchased a Sterns & Foster queen-size Hearthstone mattress, ‘Luxury Firm’, at a terrific price for about $760 delivered (w/10% Sears discount; $127 BING cashback, 18 months 0% financing). It is the lowest priced Sterns & Foster model, the ‘Level H’ mattress and it felt great when I tested it in the store. I also demo’d this same Stearns and Foster ‘Level H’ in Luxury Firm at Sleepies and Macys. I was sure I found the right mattress at the right price. Firm, supportive, and comfortable. I took delivery and I’ve had the mattress for 28 days. I have only two days left to decide what the heck to do. Help!! I’m a slender 47 yr old male, 5’11’, 135lbs. I have a curvature in my lumbar region and also a herniated disc and get frequent lower back pain. I've had back issue since I was a teenager. The mattress feels much softer and squishy on top than I recall the floor models being, and it’s just a little too plush for me. It’s just bearable if I sleep on my side, for now. If it softens up even just a little, it will be way too soft and a big problem. As is, it’s too soft for stomach sleeping. I need something a step or two up in firmness. The problem is the next step up in firmness in the Stearns & Foster line is their ‘ultra firm’ and from my memory it was as hard as a board. With Sears restocking fee and pickup fee on returns (I’d lose $200 returning it!), I decided to try exchange it for the S&F ‘Firm’ mattress and if it ends up being too firm, I’d get a topper when finances allow. Unfortunately, S&F only offer two firmness levels in this mattress, a Luxury Plush and Luxury Firm. Period. I’m reading the mattress surgery threads, I’m a handy guy but it seems like a drastic measure to slice open a brand new expensive mattress. Plus, if I did that, how would I make this mattress slightly firmer? Stearns & Foster does have an ultra firm mattress but only at a more expensive level at least $100 more. And that would be for a stiff as a board mattress that was very uncomfortable to me in the store. I’d likely have to spend another $200 for a topper and no guarantee that would make it soft enough. As for other brands, I didn’t like mattresses with the springs tied together as the entire surface moved like trampolines. I like the pocketed coils. Any suggestions?
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Shovel & TC, Thanks so much for the ideas. Shovel you have come at the problem in a very flexible and efficient manner. On your own mattress, are you doing it as a surgery or simply adding toppers? One thing I see often mentioned is coil count. I understand that gauge, metal, and construction combine to resulting in the spring system's support, but all things being equal, is a higher coil count from a manufacturer more desirable? I notice the Serta mattress you reference has a relatively low coil count. Some mattresses I tested felt like laying in the back of a moving pickup truck or laying on a trampoline, I'm exaggerating of course, but the nature of the mattresses movement had a resemblance. I suppose that is the nature of intertwined coils, it feels a bit funky to me. The feeling of isolation and form fitting has a lavish effect and is one of the features that drew me to the S&F. I may be a little loathe to surrender that. I'll try to search on lower back pain and coil design. Your topper strategy is very well though out and clever method of testing without expensive irreversible commitment. I wish you well on your PU/HD36 trial. As I mentioned up thread, I slept for about four months on a block of open cell PU foam of some common variety and it did the job wonderfully. Come to think of it, the other really good sleep in the last few years was in a rather nice hotel near an airport on a layover, I can't recall the hotel chain but the mattress was pure heaven and no back pain in the morning ... and I'm usually reluctant with hotel beds due to fears of saggyness or softness. I'm feeling very much time pressured as I believe I have to make a decision today, or get stuck with this mattress. I don't feel as if I have it quite figured out just yet. The Sears store is also a very long commute to the other side of the city, numerous transfers subways/buses (I'll keep the Home Depot rental in mind TC, I remember seeing those vehicles parked at the store).
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Hi Gasoline.... love that handle! Last night latest try - poly foams 1 inch soft- 1 inch hard. was a disaster.... waaaaaayyyyy too hard. I got up at 4 am and started playing musical toppers. I should disclaimer my advice as coming from Thomas Edison.... just before he discovered the electric light! It was said that after his 10,000 failure, he was asked "you have failed 10,000 times... don't you think you should give up?" He replied" I haven't failed 10,000 times, I am getting closer, because I have eliminated one more way it can't be done!" At 4 AM I resorted to an earlier attempt that was OK: 1 inch of 4 lb eco friendly memory foam from overstock.com (laugh) which is pretty good mem foam for cheap, but laughable streaky green! Under that was 1 inch of 20 ILD latex. I have been experimenting with a section of firmer foam on the bottom layer from the lumbar region to feet, (1 inch for example) for more support there, because I read that mattress makers do that to support the greater weight "zoning". Last night it was the 1 inch of latex (firmer than mem foam) from lumbar to feet on the bottom and from lumbar up to head softer memory foam, then a complete layer of 1 inch of memory foam. I believe that will be the ultimate solution, but not there yet. I have not resorted to surgery. I hate to destroy what could be the wrong matttress so I can't sell on craigslist for even $100-200. I am now questioning the wisdom (for me at least) of the latest mattress (my "base") being continuouls linked coil. The last time I slept "pretty well" was on a 12 year old lower to middle range simmons beautyrest. I have not slept on anything but a beautyrest since 1973... until my mattress nightmare started 5 years ago to accommodate my Princess with a firmer mattress.. and the first 5 or six we tried were BR. The beautyrest has their industry changing pocketed coil which was the industry standard for accomodating spine curvature in an inner spring mattress. Then others found ways around the patent, and foams arrived. Foams can be more mechanically tied together by cell structure than the independent coils. See: bowling ball. Maybe the extra firm linked Serta is too hard to accommodate without a ton of expensive latex, and I have found that to me it feels to jelly like unstable when I am perced on top. So SCRATCH MY SUGGESTION TO BUY A LINKED SPRING MATTRESS WITHOUT A BUNCH MORE IN STORE RESEARCH BY YOU. Coil number, design, and gauge are a good question. The larger the gauge number, the smaller the diameter the wire. The smaller the coil diameter, the small the footprint it can leave on your body, so all else equal, more is better. Simmons has more smaller coils, but supposedly from many posts they are not tempered. (Simmons typically 15 ga down to 13 ga. ) To an engineer.. that means: not a spring! On the other hand, the comfort layer if poly foam which was heavily used up until perhaps the last 10 years when mem foam and latex came invogue. The upstart of the separate vs linked, tempered vs untempered issue is that Simmons has reputation for softer accommodation and caving in earlier than Sealy. Sealy rates 6% higher on a website that has amalgamated all the net ratings of matress types. 66% pos for Sealy, 61% Simmons, 59% Serta, and memory foam 80%, latex 79%. Sealey and Stearns (common ownership) use larger coils, stiffer gauge, fewer, and are tempered. I think most of their models are linked springs. Hotel mattresses. I sleep better on most hotel mattresses... quite a few in my travels, and pursued thought of buying one either asking the owner which one (ought to buy the exact one!) or a hotel mattress program.. they all have them. If they didn't have a program, they couldn't tell me which one.. or the makers so obfuscated what was what by changing names and private labeling ... even in their hotel mattress program (read comments of failed attempts to do this by buyers) that I wasn't willing to throw another $1200 to 2000 at the problem. Wanted to give you the update, and sorry I can't be of more immediate help. Good luck, shovel99 |
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Just looked at the macy's mattress... does look like a good one. Does have thick chunk of latex (good) and small amounts of memory. Right now, I am liking thin memory on top for its accommodation molding... but not much of it because mem foam will fail waaaay before latex.. even springs. So less is more. Regarding tests: I have spent hours lying on the mattress in the store. Up to 2 hours at a time. I even thought about asking for permission to sleep over! Could you talk Macy's into that? In the many hours of in store vs.. at home sleeping overnight, what felt fine... perfect etc. in the store ALWAYS was too firm by the time I got it home. May be just me with "need firm for my bad back" in the back of my mind. The problem is that I need form fitting for side, too, and that damn compromise is my problem. First line of defense: talk sears into giving you more time, but if not, I would take it back and eat the restock fee. At least get them to agree to credit it back of you change your mind and buy another sears mattress?
Good luck, shovel99 |
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DUMP THAT BED! IT WILL ONLY GET SOFTER AND SQUISHIER! That mattres is the same as the Bruno Clair I bought and it felt nice in the store. At home, my back hurt, got worse, made a butt-dent inside of three months, HORRIBLE pain. S and F did NOTHING other than send out a moron who I had to let into my home, be nice to, and she ignored the fact that the box springs was warped, and the mattress was painful to me. Her report said that the mattress was fine, box springs was fine, and my problem was lack of proper support under the bed(I had a heavy-duty frame with FIVE legs under it, exactly what is on their OWN literature!), so any warranty was null and void! WHATTHEHELL? I ended up giving this mattress to a friend who is heavier than I am(I only weigh 125# and am 5'6")and she got a couple of months out of it before it started to kill her back as well. ( I had been reduced to sleeping the perimeter of the bed because the entire middle was horrible...it was a CA King and 4 nights/week I have the entire bed to myself). Looked good, sucked to sleep on. If you like pocket coils, and need to get another S and F. do go up to the next level and get something with less P/U foam inside...it dies really quick. I know this particular bed feels good in the store...,my mom wanted to buy one and I didn't let her. She's going to Better Bed this week for her new bed. Please listen to me...save your back...find a friend with a truck and move the sucker yourself....just don't keep it! Kait |
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I tend to agree that a pocketed coil in theory can be better than the interlaced, because it can conform better to your body. However, it does not seem like there is anyone on this forum that has one and is happy with it. So, I can't really say if they will last over time. There have been plenty of people unhappy with Simmons and S&F. I think there was one recent poster that bought a S&F estate and was happy while it was new. I don't think they updated their situation though. The main risk you face is that some where down the not too distant road the foam will start giving out and you will be unhappy. I am not sure what is in your particular model, but this is what is in the one ultra firm I could find on US-mattress. There is enough unusual sounding foam (has to be PU foam) to be a concern. When I was looking last year, my favorite non Tempurpedic was the S&F Estate luxury firm (non pillowtop). However, after reading about the foam and reading enough epinions (which you should do) on S&F, I decided against it. So, I tend to agree that biting the bullet and returning is probably better than throwing good money after bad. That leaves open the issue of what to do. Really hard to say if you want an innerspring and don't want to do a surgery. Kait is happy with one she had built locally. The Royal Pedic and a few other use high quality materials, but they can be very expensive. |
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I am about to call Sear.com again. If I can exchange without a pickup/delivery fee and/or without a restocking fee, and also get a 30 day return policy on the replacement mattress, it may make sense to select another mattress at Sears and at least channel the funds, which would otherwise be lost, into that. But, several factors influence this: foremost is if I can select an appropriate mattress and its pricing at Sears is good. I had put off purchasing this mattress for a very very long time due to my finances. Unfortunately, I do not have a cushion of funds to lose while making wrong decisions. I’m curious, if a consensus is that interconnected springs perform better for lower back pain, what ‘spring chassis’ are people going with? Is there a make/model that is modestly priced that has good springs and with a minimum of shoddy padding? I’m pretty much certain that I will not perform mattress surgery on a brand new mattress…any modifications would more than likely be by adding topper(s) to a too firm mattress (of course, if committed to the mattress and farther down the road it becomes unusable, then yeah I could see doing mattress surgery to replace the foam). At least that is how I see things now. I think I also need to be careful in overcompensating for the present soft mattress by buying an absolutely rock hard mattress. Yesterday, I found myself asking the salesmen to show me the firmest mattresses they sell; they are the only one I was interested in. What about the firmer end of the Sealy Reserve line? Unfortunately, if I return my S&F mattress to Sears, I lose $200 (approx. 25%) of my budget. It's looking rather grim.
PS: regarding S&F reviews: I had read that S&F previously had made some poor foam choices in their mattresses and experienced an unusually high level of sagging and returns which damaged their reputation and that in 2009 they redesigned and spec’d their mattresses & foam. Possibly many of the negative reviews relate to the mattress’ redesign. PSS: Shovel, sorry your back wasn’t pleased. LOL, I too asked a salesman if I could sleep overnight ; ) This message was modified Aug 30, 2010 by Lovegasoline
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Update:
Good news. I spoke with Sears and they told me that they are going to treat this as a defective mattress. Therefore, whether I do an exchange for a different model or decide to return the mattress for a full refund, I will not be charged any pickup/delivery fees, or restocking fees. Of course, if I pick out a different mattress, I pay (or get credited) the difference in price, but the original transaction is maintained, so that the 18 months at 0% financing on my purchase stays in effect. It took numerous calls and transfers to speak with a customer service rep who had the authority and responsibility to give me a definitive answer, but now that I have it, I think that's very fair policy from Sears. They also granted me a couple additional days (till Friday) to make up my mind as I'm at the 30 day warranty deadline today. Kudos to Sears' customer service. Now that's taken care of, I really need to survey my options and arrive at a solution. So where do I resume my search? Do I look for a spring bed that is well constructed - and since all the modest priced major brand mattresses appear to be constructed with low grade foams - look for one with as little padding as possible and adjust comfort with topper(s)? Perhaps go downward in mattress quality/price and use the money saved for the toppers? Oh, the salesman in Bloomingdale's suggested I might like a horsehair mattress, but didn't know where I could shop for one. Do I need to enroll in a PhD program? This message was modified Aug 30, 2010 by Lovegasoline
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| Since you're in NYC, why don't you take a trip down to ABC Carpet and Home at Broadway & 19th and try out their latex mattresses to see if you like them. They have both Talalay and Dunlop offerings on the floor from 4 different manufacturers. I think they have some memory foam models there too so you can compare side by side. At least that would give you some idea what direction you want to go, even if some (or all) of the models they sell are out of your price range. You could also try out Ikea's dunlop latex mattresses which are on their floor, in your price range, and seem a lot firmer than the squishy Green Sleep ones at ABC. |
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InsoManiac, thanks for the tip, I'll swing by ABC and check out their mattresses. Where else in NYC would have a diverse selection other than the major dept. stores and Sleepys? I'm guessing all the foam mattresses will be beyond my budget. |
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Hi Gasman, With a limited budget, and many folks confirming that your expectation of buying one that you will both like.. and last any length of time is out of the question... I recommend that you find the stripped down solid Sealy posturepedic from the reserve line. 736 better coils on the reserve line, and without the expensive foam, will be cheaper.. both of what you want. It is terrible plowing through Sears.com's abysmal search engine but I found this at sears. Sealy Posturepedic Theory Firm Queen Mattress OnlyIt has 736 tempered 14 gauge coils.. good.. should last. Minimum layers of crap foam to go bad.. on which to lay your latex. Wore out before finding this with box spring, but hopefully you can get this or something close in budget... and with two x one inch of talalay latex (start with just one inch, 20 ILD).... maybe we can get you into the luck out zone. Given that you have a similar sleep pattern and back situation as I do, you will not likely want much more than 2 inches at $90 each anyway. Or experiment with the cheap foam I have experimented with budget constraints? http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_SPM240649799P?prdNo=31&blockNo=31&blockType=G31 Or search www.usmattress.com for models and excellent descriptions of what is inside, and ask Sears for a comparable model to which they can point you?
Good luck, gotta fade.
shovel99
This message was modified Jun 7, 2011 by a moderator
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