Canada Mattress Shopping advice

[phoenix]

Hi verasco,

Welcome to the Mattress Forum!

So I read a lot of you site and I thank you for the information. However… you top 15 to stay away from is the choices I have. When I go shopping my choices are serta, sealy, kingsdown, marshall, home, beauty rest.

I’m sorry to hear you don’t have any retailers offering better quality products in your area. If you provide your town I can see if I am aware of any better retailers closer to your home.

I’m not quite sure what you mean by a top 15 list of products to avoid. Perhaps you’re referring to the Consumer Reports list of their “top 15 mattresses” and my comments upon not using their list as a reliable way to assess mattresses. It is true that the major brands such as Sealy/Stearns & Foster, Simmons, and Serta all tend to use lower quality and less durable materials in their mattresses than most of their smaller competitors that will tend to soften or break down prematurely relative to the price you pay, which is why I would generally suggest avoiding all of them completely (along with the major retailers that focus on them as well) regardless of how they may feel in a showroom, along with any mattress where you aren’t able to find out the type and quality/durability of the materials inside it (see the guidelines here along with post #3 here and post #12 here and post #404 here).

I have a talalay latex mattress 3 years old from sleepy’s sold with a 20 year warranty that has a 1-1.5 depression and softening significant to the need of replacement (wasn’t cheep).

I’m not aware of an all-latex mattress that was sold at Sleepy’s, but am aware of some that used a little latex with polyfoam in the quilt and also in the core. A depression of 1"-1.5" for a three year old all-latex mattress would certainly be quite abnormal.

I also have another bed that is called pure latex bliss that has a talalay latex topper for pressure relief that is too firm I guess as it causes me hip and shoulder pain. I paid good money for these mattresses in hopes to alleviate some of the pain.

There are different models within the Pure Talalay Bliss line, and there are also different firmnesses of toppers offered, so you certainly can have a firmer feeling product using latex, although shoulder and hip pain can be indicative of both a mattress that is too soft as well as one that is too hard. What is the name of the mattress in their line that you have, and which topper did you purchase?

Interesting enough I have had poor sleep in some luxury hotels and some of the best sleep in luxury hotels.
to the point of calling them and asking what the mattress was as I would like to purchase it. One of the companies I called was a major “S” company and when I asked them for that specific name/style they said I could not purchase it as it was strictly commercial not for home sales bawwahaa.

The quality of a mattress and the price per night of a hotel have little to do with each other. It is true that most hotels purchase what is termed “contract bedding” that is not available for retail sale, as it is generally even lower in quality than what is sold to the public, as hotel mattresses are turned out more frequently than those in a residential setting. Some hotel brands have started to capitalize on people “sleeping better” when staying at their hotel and are offering their mattresses for sale to the general public, but these tend to be quite overpriced items using lower quality materials than what I would recommend for a durable product. Hotels in general tend to use harder feeling mattresses with fewer padding layers, and then add comfort through “top of bed” products that are easier to manipulate and more affordable to replace when damaged.

Sleeping better at a hotel isn’t necessarily a sign of a higher quality product, but it more often points to the fact that your mattress at home is either inappropriate for your personal taste or in need of replacement.

With my available choices I’m at arms… I have come to the conclusion that I can’t expect the bed to last longer than 3 years so 3 years at 1500 cost about 500/yr or around 45/mnth. x2. I’m ok with that, However I expect 3 years at least with a boasting warranty of 10 from the manufacturer.

As you’re probably already aware, warranty (guarantee of defects in workmanship and materials) and comfort life (how long a mattress will truly last) are two different items, and the terms aren’t mutually inclusive. If you’re only expecting a three-year comfort life, you can pretty much pick any item in a normal department store and get that with the common low density foams used.

So how do I shop without true disclosure that is in the product?

I don’t recommend that you do – at least I don’t recommend that you make a purchase without knowing the specifications of everything within a mattress in order to manage your expectations.

What I do recommend is reading the mattress shopping tutorial here and following the steps there to help you select a mattress.

The tutorial, in its simplest form:
Choosing the “best possible” mattress for any particular person really comes down to FIRST finding a few knowledgeable and transparent retailers and/or manufacturers (either locally or online) that sell the types of mattresses that you are most interested in that are in a budget range you are comfortable with and that you have confirmed will provide you with the all the information you need about the materials and components inside the mattresses they sell so you will be able to make informed choices and meaningful comparisons between mattresses and then …

1. Careful testing (hopefully using the testing guidelines in the tutorial) to make sure that a mattress is a good match for you in terms of “comfort”, firmness, and PPP … and/or that you are comfortable with the options you have available to return, exchange, or “fine tune” the mattress and any costs involved if you can’t test a mattress in person or aren’t confident that your mattress is a suitable choice.

2. Checking to make sure that there are no lower quality materials or weak links in a mattress you are considering relative to your weight/BMI range that could compromise the durability and useful life of the mattress (see the durability guidelines here).

3. Comparing your finalists for “value” based on #1 and #2 and all the other parts of your personal value equation that are most important to you.

Specs.
5"0 female @ 138lbs curvy figure, side sleeper majority of the time. 50+ likes a luxury feel with good support, pressure relief for sore hips and shoulder pain and lower back pain (could be current beds fault).
5"11 make @ 205lbs wide shoulders, fairly fit and athletic, back and side sleeper. 50+ some complaints of lower back pain. like a lots of support.

While I can certainly help with “how” to choose … It’s not possible to make specific suggestions or recommendations for either a mattress, manufacturers/retailers, or combinations of materials or components because the first “rule” of mattress shopping is to always remember that you are the only one that can feel what you feel on a mattress and there are too many unknowns, variables, and personal preferences involved that are unique to each person to use a formula or for anyone to be able to predict or make a specific suggestion or recommendation about which mattress or combination of materials and components or which type of mattress would be the best “match” for you in terms of “comfort”, firmness, or PPP or how a mattress will “feel” to you or compare to another mattress based on specs (either yours or a mattress), sleeping positions, health conditions, or “theory at a distance” that can possibly be more reliable than your own careful testing (hopefully using the testing guidelines in step 4 of the tutorial) or your own personal sleeping experience (see mattress firmness/comfort levels in post #2 here).

Unfortunately, none of the mattress links you provided offered any meaningful information about those mattresses, so until you can find out the information listed here I wouldn’t be able to offer you any advice about these products.

If you can’t find any decent retailers in your area and you wish to look online, here a list of online mattress sources for Canadians in post #21 here. Not everyone likes to shop online, so post #2 here and this topic have more about the pros and cons of a local vs an online purchase. You stated that you do not wish to purchase latex or memory foam, so your online options can be a bit limited on the list that I provided.

I know this may not be the advice you desired, but with the information I currently have in hand from your post it’s the best I can offer at this time.

Phoenix