Any Brooklyn Bedding customers unhappy?

[phoenix]

Hi JDMWDC,

For example, the salesman at BB informed me their mattresses have a 1" pillow top quilting (though curiously their website says it’s 1.5"…). I personally feel like that’s a LOT of cushion, and might take away from the feel of the mattress. After all, the idea is to have the thing conform as best as possible to your body to ease pressure points. Also I’m a bit burned after my Sealy pillow top mattress caved in in the middle, to the tune of 1.25" (as measured by a warranty agent… .25" more and I could have replaced it) in the first 6 months. So the words pillow top make me cringe.

This is not actually a “pillowtop” layer (which is very different) but a quilting layer which is compressed with the quilting design. They also have different mattresses which use different amounts of quilting foam and other materials as well (such as wool) depending on the mattress and on the “feel” that the design goal is meant to achieve.

Once you get into the range of about 2" or more then I would be cautious (and the Sealy Pillowtops nave much more than this) but in this range it’s there to fine tune the feel and performance of the mattress. You can read a bit more about quilting layers in post #2 here and the post it links to.

But that aside, it’s difficult to buy online for other reasons. Ex: how will a “firm” v. “medium” latex support layer feel with memory foam? What about how each will feel with 4lb vs. 5lb foam? and compare that to “firm” v. “cushion firm” of a latex-only mattress? I’m curious how you are analyzing decisions like this. At some point, doing all the research in the world is no substitute for a showroom where you can lay on the offerings side by side. The salesman told me if I’m worried about body indentations to go with their “cool” mattress series (which, conveniently, is the most expensive line they have). But I feel like at 150 pounds I shouldn’t have to worry about my mattress caving in like my current one does! Might have to check some of the other members on this website.

As you are pointing out … ordering a mattress online can have some extra risk involved. You can read about some of the pros and cons of local vs online (which of course is an ongoing discussion) in this thread as well as post #2 here. Good local testing on similar materials or designs can certainly be helpful to reduce the risk. Some online mattresses are also made to be similar in “feel” and performance to some mattresses (such as Tempurpedic) that are widely available locally which can then be used for local testing as an approximation. In other cases … exchange or return policies (either for a mattress or for individual layers) can also reduce the risk substantially because then your own sleeping experience can be used for “testing”.

What you were told is also correct that higher quality and density foams are also more durable (and logically they are also more costly as well of course). You can read more about the many factors that are involved in durability in post #4 here (and the post it links to as well).

As in all things connected with mattresses … the parts of each person’s “personal value equation” that are most important and each person’s risk tolerance and the tradeoffs they are happy to make can be quite different.

Phoenix