Hi lovadey,
[quote]costco.com/Chambers-King-Upholstered-Bench-Bed-.product.100118283.html#
Costco just told us that we need a box spring if our mattress is going to be 8 inches thick. With a 14 inch mattress, we can simply put a piece of plywood from home depot but I know that thickness raises the price of the foam mattresses considerably[/quote]
ADMIN NOTE: Removed Footprint to Discontinued Product | Archived Footprint: costco.com/Chambers-King-Upholstered-Bench-Bed-.product.100118283.html#
I’m not sure if you are clear about the difference between a box spring and a foundation and there are many less knowledgeable people in the industry (probably including the person you talked with at Costco) that incorrectly call foundations “box springs”. A box spring actually has springs inside it that flex and are generally used underneath two sided innerspring mattresses. Foundations don’t have any springs inside and have a support surface that is either a solid surface or uses slats and has very little to no flex and are generally used with one sided innerspring mattresses or foam mattresses. Foundations come in different heights that range from a bunkie board (usually about 2" thick) to taller foundations that are in the range of 8" to 10". The different heights are just a preference so that in combination with a bedframe and a mattress your sleeping surface ends up being the height that you prefer. There are also many platform beds that are also suitable for use directly under a mattress without a foundation as long as the slats are close enough together to prevent the mattress from sagging into any gaps in the support surface.
Some platform beds (or a piece of plywood) have a solid surface that doesn’t allow any airflow under the mattress which can increase the risk of moisture retention in a mattress which in combination with other risk factors can add to the risk of developing mold or mildew (see post #10 here).
There is more detailed information about the different types of support systems (bedframes, foundations, box springs, or platform beds) that are generally used under different types of mattresses in post #1 here and the posts it links to.
I don’t keep a record of the individual mattresses or their specs that the retailers and manufacturers in the hundreds of forum lists throughout the forum carry on their floor or have available online (it would be a bigger job than anyone could possibly keep up with in a constantly changing market) but checking their websites and making some preliminary phone calls to the retailers/manufacturers that are on the lists is always a good idea before you decide on which retailers or manufacturers you wish to deal with or visit anyway. This will tell you which of them carry mattresses that would meet your specific criteria, are transparent about the materials in their mattresses, and that carry the type of mattresses that you are interested in testing that are also in the budget range you are comfortable with. Once you have checked their websites and/or talked with the ones that interest you then you will be in a much better position to decide on the ones that you are most interested in visiting or considering based on the results of your preliminary research and conversations.
That being said … I would be very cautious about choosing a mattress based on its thickness alone because the thickness of a mattress or any individual layers inside it is really just a side effect of the design and the design goals of a mattress and is also only one of many variables that can affect the feel and performance of a mattress relative to any particular to any specific person and by itself isn’t particularly meaningful (see post #2 here). In some cases higher weight ranges will sometimes do better with a mattress that is a little thicker than lower weight ranges (see post #14 here for more about the effect of thickness) but even this depends more on the specific design and combination of materials in the mattress and on how well the mattress “as a whole” matches your specific needs and preferences than anything else.
In most cases it’s best to choose a good quality/value mattress that is a good “match” for you in terms of PPP (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief, and your Personal preferences) and then use a support system underneath it (a bedframe and a foundation or a platform bed and a foundation if you need it) that provides the height that you prefer rather than buying a mattress based primarily on its thickness.
Phoenix