6 inch Latex Mattress

[phoenix]

Hi Dan1979,

The durability and useful life of a mattress is relative and depends on many factors (including the person on the mattress) and there isn’t a number of years that can be “attached” to any particular type of material because of the number of factors involved.

Having said that … post #4 here and the links it includes has more information about the many factors involved which can help you assess the relative durability of one mattress compared to another and answer the durability questions in your post as “accurately” as possible.

1. I understood that the durability of a latex mattress that has 100% organic latex in it, which I understood is 98%, is somewhere over 20 years, if nothing unfortunate happens, like heavy damage or pulling harder from one side, or things that are directly affecting it. I want to know how this number of years decreases, or at least to make a correlation between the percentage of organic/synthetic. To be able to make a logic of how bad durability decreases by increasing the synthetic percentage, I would like to know the durability for 15% synthetic, 50% synthetic, 100% synthetic latex mattress.

Dunlop latex that has an organic certification is no more durable than 100% natural Dunlop latex. They are the same material except organic latex has an organic certification. I would also question whether there is any latex that is 98% natural rubber … organic or otherwise. All latex is a durable material (natural, synthetic, or blended) but there is more information about the different types of latex in post #6 here. Once again there isn’t a number of years that can be “attached” to any type of mattress or material because it depends on many factors besides just the type of material used.

2. I understood that if I would buy a polyfoam that is HD, its shape will suffer after 5 years, starting to allow the indentations created to be noticeable. How does this applies to HR foam.

The single biggest factor in the relative durability of polyfoam is the density regardless of whether it is HD or HR. The main difference between HD and HR is in its other properties (such as resilience, point elasticity, and compression modulus). HD is also a generic term which isn’t particularly meaningful because some manufacturers call 1.35 lb polyfoam HD while others consiser 1.8 lb to be the bottom end of HD. In most cases 1.5 lb is the most common lower end of HD. It will also depend on the specific design and layering of the mattress because the comfort layers of a mattress are normally the “weak link” so the density and thickness of any lower density polyfoam in the comfort layers is the most important part of identifying the weak link of a mattress.

[quote]3. How can I know which one is HR foam and which one isn’t. You said:
“This is the highest grade of polyfoam and weighs 2.5 lbs per cubic foot or more and uses a different formulation than conventional polyfoam. It also must have a support factor (progressive resistance) of 2.4 or higher and resilience of 60% to qualify for this grade.”[/quote]

HR polyfoam is a specific grade of polyfoam that can be used on a law label but there are also other types of polyfoam that are usually called “high performance” foams that use similar formulations that are more resilient or have a higher compression modulus that have a lower density. They will show up on the law label as polyurethane. These high performance polyfoams have some of the properties of HR polyfoam and use a different chemical formulation than conventional polyfoam but the single most effective way to compare the durability of any polyfoam is density regardless of whether it is high performance, HR (high resilience), conventional, or HD (high density). The only way to know what is in your mattress is the information that is provided by the manufacturer of your mattress and many of these can only provide the information that is supplied by the rep of their foam manufacturer which may not always be accurate because there are some “fuzzy definitions” that are very common in the industry. It’s also a very complex topic that in most cases would overwhelm most consumers even if all the specs of every type of polyfoam were available. I would focus mainly on the density of the polyfoam and the position of each layer in a mattress to assess durability and on your own personal testing or experience in terms of PPP (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief, and Personal preferences) and how a mattress “feels”.

If it has less weight then this or if it has less then 2.4 support factor, or if it has a resilience of less then 60% is automatically a fake HR foam? Is any of those details going to tell me if that foam is or is not a HR foam or not.

It’s not so much that it is a “fake” HR polyfoam but that it’s not technically HR even though it may still be a high performance polyfoam that uses the same type of chemical formulation as HR. These are specs that you won’t generally be able to obtain outside of density information. There would be little to any durability difference between a high performance polyfoam that was 2.4 lbs density, an HD polyfoam that was 2.5 lb density, and an HR polyfoam that was 2.5 lb density.

4. Will a real HR foam mattress core give me 10 years of unnoticeable indentations? Or I should simply give this idea up, and look at other things.

There will be some softening and some impressions in all foam materials over time but it would depend on the specifics of the mattress and the positioning of the layers, on its softness/firmness, and of course on the density of the foam in the comfort layers. For some people and with some mattresses HR polyfoam may maintain its comfort and support for much longer than 10 years. For others that are on the edge of their comfort and support range then even smaller amounts of foam softening (which will still happen with any foam) may put them outside of the range of PPP that is suitable for them (there is more about this in one of the links in the durability post).

5. What material should a pocket spring mattress should have between the springs and the upper comfort layer so that I am sure that I won’t start to feel the springs in my back after 5 years, but in the same time to actually be able to take advantage of the fact that it is a mattress with separated coils. In other words, how can I be sure about the quality.

This depends on the specifics of the pocket spring and on the general design goal of the mattress. Pocket springs that have a higher coil count will have less “gaps” between the springs and can use foam directly over the springs. Others that have lower coil counts may need some type of insulator or mesh to prevent the foam from sagging into the larger gaps between the springs. In many cases there will be firmer foam over the springs (which will sag less) and then softer foam above that. Pocket coils are also encased in a fabric which provides a more evenly supportive surface for the foam on top of them which is why you will generally see insulator layers over innersprings that use helicals and don’t have a fabric pocket around them.

In most cases I would focus on the type and density of the foam above the pocket coils which is the biggest factor in foam softening which can lead to the loss of comfort and support and feeling the firmness of the springs if the foam softens too much. There are some higher coil count pocket coils that are soft and conforming enough that even lying directly on the coils would be “comfortable” and these don’t need the same thickness of foam above them. There are so many variables involved in these types of complex and “it depends” questions that can take many years of experience to understand so it’s usually best to “connect with an expert” that can talk about the specifics of a particular mattress and already knows what you would otherwise need to learn than it is to try and “become an expert”.

In terms of durability … knowing the basics of the type and quality/durability of the materials in the mattress … and in particular the comfort layers … will greatly shift the odds in your favor but trying to find simple or exact answers to complex questions will generally lead to paralysis by analysis and put you in a position that would take years of learning before you could even buy a mattress.

6. What is cold foam and how is its durability? Probably a very unclear question, though, I was unable to find proper information about it.

High performance polyfoams (HR or otherwise) are sometimes called cold foam because they don’t require or generate as much heat when the chemicals react together or are cured.

7. What about the difference in durability between memory foam and poly foam? Most likely we can only talk about difference in the comfort layers since no one uses memory foam in the core layers, right? And for the topper layer doesn’t really matter anyway, or?

Yes … memory foam is too soft and too temperature sensitive to be used in primary support layers in a mattress but the comfort layers are the weak link of most mattresses anyway and the most significant factor in it’s useful life. The relative durability of each would depend on many things including the density of each but I would put both 5 lb memory foam (or higher) and polyfoam in the 2.5 lb range or higher in the very durable category. Which one would last longer would depend on the more detailed specifics of each foam and on the specific design of the mattress. More specific than this in each particular design wouldn’t be possible to quantify with any accuracy except in relative terms (comparing the probable durability of one mattress design to another based on the specifics of each design and relative to the person that was using the mattress).

Phoenix