Adult Mattress - Sear....ching

Discussions General Mattresses Questions
1

Hello again,

After reading through this site, I have a lot more information - now I’d like to get on top of it instead of the other way around… :wink:

We are looking for a mattress for a couple - ~110 lb & ~135 lb
We have a 15 yr old double, 2-sided, innerspring, Sears-o-pedic. It has been fine and I’m seriously considering going back to it and forgetting about anything “new and improved”.

We idly started looking at a new one because sometimes I felt our current one could use a little more cushioning on the surface, and because I swear I could feel heartbeats causing the surface of the mattress to jiggle at times. Not that heartbeats are bad, in general, but I could do without the constant sense of wobbling. That and a fantasy that a newer mattress would make life easier when kids jump in in the morning and parent still wants to sleep… but kids are noisier and have more reach than the bowling ball used in the ads…

We went to a chain store, Sear…ching for a mattress for a child, and ended up buying one for ourselves.
It’s from a major brand, has memory foam, a Euro-top, is way too firm and too high. Wow, that’s 0 for 5! :S

In return, the mattress has given me so much - back pain, both lower and upper (surface muscles); lack of will to go to bed; incentive to be “out of bed” before I’m actually “up”; a place for a 3-yr old to practice BASE-jumping; and an urge to compulsively read this site. Ok, 1 for 5 that round.

The actual specs are:

  • 8" Patented Evolution Non-Flip Pocket Coil construction
  • …Queen with 800 Pocket Coils…
  • 13¾ gauge (Firm), 14¾ gauge (Plush) [ we got Firm - it felt like a good idea at the time ]
  • 3 Quilt layers: 1" Convolute Foam, 5/8" Comfort Foam and Silk Fibre
  • 4 Comfort Layers: 2" Comfort Foam, 1" Support Foam, ½" Latex and 1" Energy Foam
  • Foam Encased
  • Mattress is 12" high
  • 100% Polyester

It also promises “deep, undisturbed sleep through reduction in motion transfer”. From my experience, that is achieved by “stunning” the muscles into submission, causing the sleeping brain to suspend all movement in a bid not to encounter more of the unyielding surface. Sorry, that was a bit flippant - I actually think I’m waking up quicker and tossing and turning more - it’s really not comfortable at all.

Since we were encouraged to keep “trying” the mattress for 30 days after I had mentioned the next day (back in the store) that I didn’t like it, I now have to start the process of the “comfort exchange”.

My options seem to be:

  1. sell this thing on Kijiji and begin again with a small retailer/manufacturer
  2. hunt through the offerings in the store to try to find something suitable that isn’t too much money (over and above the “Black Friday price” we paid)

Given:

  1. the store sells the big S brands,
  2. a salesperson told me (after I asked) that they don’t get told what is in the mattress other than the upbeat ad-speak cards on the ends of the displays
  3. the original salesperson seems to know (magically) some of what is in some mattresses anyway
  4. I’ve read a lot here (“…spend an hour going over…” !!!)

how can I sort through the major brands and find something suitable, beyond the testing and feel (which (we) failed the first time around!) now that I know that the materials and construction won’t meet my newly honed standards?

[Related:
Native to Missionary - “Is it true that someone can’t be punished for a sin if they don’t know of it?”
Missionary: - “Of course not, they would be Innocents”
Native - “Then why did you tell me??!!”
:cheer: ]

Sorry for the ‘tone’, this has consumed the last couple of weeks, it’s late and I still don’t really want to go (that) bed…
:blink:

I think our process (within that store’s offerings) is to:

  1. exclude memory foam
  2. exclude mattresses over a certain height (we even have a low-profile foundation)
  3. do better PPP testing
  4. make a plucky bid to learn what is actually in our best choices
  5. consider price
  6. cross our fingers and chalk it up to experience

Given that our old mattress was “fine” for so long (and it certainly wasn’t bought with this much agonizing), then are the new ones really that different? Are the unidentified foams of today so much worse than those of a decade ago?

Any advice is appreciated. But in the end, it’s my bed and…well, good thing I have a futon…

Thank you

2

Hi MatRest,

Unfortunately these specs are mostly meaningless because they don’t include the density of the foam layers (see this article)

Post #2 here has more about the two main strategies I would use (outside of selling the mattress and starting over again) if you are in the unfortunate position of needing to do a comfort exchange at a store where there are no particularly good quality/value options available.

  1. I would exclude any mattress that used memory foam that included more than “about an inch or so” of either unknown density or less than 4 lb density (if they disclose it).

  2. I would focus more on the thickness of any lower density or unknown density foam in the comfort layers than on the overall height of the mattress

  3. This is always a good idea.

  4. This is an even better idea although sometimes you won’t be able to find out no matter how hard you try. It will depend on the transparency of the manufacturer.

  5. I would focus more on the “value” of a mattress purchase than just on just the price of a mattress alone (see post #13 here).

  6. I guess this would be an option as well but it wouldn’t be my first choice :slight_smile:

In general the mainstream mattresses are worse than 10 or 15 years ago yes (see post #3 here and post #404 here and post #12 here).

My “best” advice is always to follow all the steps in the tutorial one step at a time and of course your comments or any questions that you may have along the way are always welcome.

  1. Read the general information so you are familiar with some of the basic information about mattresses and can recognize the manufacturers and retailers that already know what you would otherwise need to learn.

  2. Learn what to avoid and decide on your budget and on the general types of mattresses and materials you are most interested in testing.

  3. Choose the stores or manufacturers that you plan to visit that are knowledgeable and transparent about the materials in their mattresses.

  4. Test mattresses carefully for PPP and suitability and check the quality of the materials for durability and narrow down your choice at each retailer or manufacturer you visit to one.

  5. Make a final choice between your finalists

Optional #6. Include online options to the local options you are considering in step #3 but in this case you would be replacing testing their mattresses with more detailed conversations on the phone. Also narrow down your choices here to a single mattress at each online retailer/manufacturer you are considering to include in your “finalists”.

Phoenix