Dear Phoenix,
I just joined this panel as I am close to making a decision on a mattress purchase. Their are far too many numbers for me and i donāt intend to become an expert, I am just seeking expert advice. The first place I looked was in Consumer Reports. I have trusted them all of my shopping life. They had some very nice things to say about a mattress I had never heard of. I am an Arizona girl and just moved to Rutherford, New Jersey. Just across the bridge from Manhattan and the mattress, The Charles P. Rogers St. Regis is sold from a factory showroom in Manhattan. This mattress according to Consumer Reports was the coolest and most durable, but some side sleepers might prefer one a bit softer.
I want to keep this short. The St.Regis pillow top is a very comfortable mattress. I would have no difficulty sleeping on it. However, they have another line called Powercore Estate, or Estate Powercore, that is unlike anything I have felt in shopping more than ten NYC stores. If a mattress can replicate weightlessness, this does it. The salesman showed me how this is because they make their own springs to their own design and figured out how to make a mattress core that senses the weight and the shape of the sleeper. Sounds like more mattress sales talk, but not when you lie down I had read some posts here from recent purchasers who seemed quite happy but something you wrote makes me question the accuracy of what is being said.
You state that Charles P. Rogers does not make their own mattresses. You may have been given inaccurate information. The truth of the matter is that I took them up on their invitation to visit the factory It is minutes from my home and I have never been in one before. I saw them making mattress after mattress, apparently each one to order. One of the upholsterers told me that his family has worked for them since 1930 and one of daughters will soon start, Apparently they have been making beds since before the Civil War.
They do not make their own foams. I saw them unloading trailers full. And they had also had huge bales of white cotton that looked like they came off a Mississippi old sidewheeler. What I did see was a fascinating production line that uncoils wire from hugh wooden spools at one end, and lines of pocketed coils come out the other end. The machine operator said that these two machines were the only ones made so far, but they are running non stop and may add more. Watching them make bolts of cloth, baskets full of cotton, and thick pieces of what I was told is naturally pure latex, maybe a few thousand yards of thread to quilt and sew it together, and another mattress is made. Their foreman told me that only a tiny number of competitors are so integrated as a large company, Leggett and Platt supplies most of the innards for most mattress assemblers. He wanted to make clear the fact that he is making mattresses basically from scratch and most of what i see out there is assembled from virtually the same parts bin and that is why most mattresses are more the same than different. He did say that Simmons Beautyrest makes good pocketed coils and that some of their machines might be almost a hundred years old. They canāt make anything as conformable as the Powercore and their labor costs must be ten times as high, but the finished product can be very good. One of the other workers told me that he used to work for many years in Shifman Brothers, a few miles away, also in NJ and that they make very good mattresses but still use the same type of spring with the coils tied together that they have used for over half a century.
I am digressing. I think that you should set your readers straight because there is so much love of yours evident in what you do, you would not like to be called out for not telling things the way they are.
I wish you the best in your work and will continue reading until I finally can make a decision. I think I will settle on the Rogers, but I have heard about Duxiana from some people at work and as they have two NYC stores, I can check them out first. I really like the 90 day comfort guarantee at Rogers, but I shop until I drop. I will keep reading and maybe contributing. Thanks Again. Polly;
I am posting the below from the Charles P. Rogers Website. It is from a button at the bottom of the specs and contains a public invitation to their new factory. If you live nearby, you should take it. I found it very educational.
More Powercoreā¢ Information closeClose
Estateā¢ Latex Mattress
Why are these mattresses different and unique?
Because our care, experience and quality will help you realize your true sleep potential.
Simply put, the way we put our top quality materials together makes a better mattress.
The innovative designs and our investment in specialty equipment provides an ability to do things other manufacturers canāt easily duplicate.
You get the best materials available. If we canāt find something good enough, we create it ourselves.
You can buy with confidence. Estateā¢ Latex mattresses are made at our East Rutherford, NJ factory. Our quality control is 100%.
Every mattress is carefully built and thoroughly checked by proud people who truly care.
Powercoreā¢ Spring Mattress Units
The exclusive Powercoreā¢ Mattress Unit is the secret behind achieving a new level of comfort and true relaxation.
This is a new, better spring system. The individual spring design and placement, attachment, proper insulation between rows of coils and careful control of finished sizing make for a super durable and unusually comfortable spring unit.
A Powercoreā¢ Unit would provide a good nights sleep without an ounce of additional padding, but of course we add progressive layers of premium quality Talalay latex.
Designed for use with latex foam, all coils that make up a Powercoreā¢ unit are proprietary winds of ultra- high tensile strength extremely flexible steel wire.
Our wireās tensile strength is 20% more than wire used by the leading U.S. mass manufacturer. The coils are pre-loaded for strength and compressed into individual technical fabric pockets.
To provide better reaction and response to body pressure points throughout the unit, the coils feature more turns, more wire and more flexibility than any previous design.
The assembly and attachment of the springs into a complete innerspring unit is done by a CNC computer controlled robotic agglomerating machine.
The very specifics of our Powercore Plusā¢ unit are trade secrets (coil designs, assembly techniques etc.) that required us to develop our own machinery to keep this knowledge āin houseā.
[color=#ff0000][sup][sub]We welcome visitors, with appointments, on a tour of our East Rutherford factory where these are made to see the machines and craftsmen in operation.[/color[/sub][/sup]]
Talalay Latex Comfort Padding
The comfort padding are layers of pure, American made Talalay latex.
The Talalay latex process creates a more consistant padding material than latex using the Dunlop method.
Latex foam is naturally cool, non-toxic, anti-bacterial and allergen resistant.
Latex is a resilient support material and less prone to body impressions than petroleum based foams.
The border is built right into our mattress with a carefully fashioned foam encasement.
These arrangement are done to create mattresses with a traditionally firm, yet responsive feel.
Underneath the upholstery, our Powercoreā¢ Unit unobtrusively provides instant adjustment and progressive support for the user without external controls.
Environmental Facts
Absolutely no solvents are used in the construction and assembly of our Estateā¢ Latex mattresses.
The steel for the innersprings is mostly post-industrial recycled and is 100% recyclable.
Our mattresses are Fire Retardant, designed and tested to meet CSPC standard 1633 without any use of chemical treatments,
All foams used are US or Canadian made and meet very strict manufacturing standards for HAP and VOC emissions.
Our foams are made without the use of PBDE, CFCās, mercury, lead or prohibited phthalates or other harmful substances.
While no mattress is completely emissions free, ours should be as low as any in the marketplace.
Customers can check foam manufacturer websites such as Carpenter (http://www.carpenter.com/), Hickory (http://www.hickorysprings.com/2008/Foam.html) and Latex International (http://www.latexfoam.com/) for more foam specific information.[/size][/size]