I’m a new poster and i first want to say this website is a gem! That said, despite reading for about a week, I may still be misunderstanding how mattresses work and so i’m hoping to ask for advice. Personal specs: Male, 26, 5’9", 175lbs
An online company, memory foam comfort, is recommended by The Mattress Underground. They sell 4 and 6 inch polyfoam mattresses, but they also recommend that you purchase a mattress topper “for added comfort”. This confuses me because I take that to mean I am only buying a support layer and not a full mattress. I could be totally wrong about this though.
Meanwhile, I am also looking at a pocket coil + polyfoam mattress at another store with the following specifications:
Support: Pocket Coil, 14 gauge, 720 count
Comfort: 2" polyfoam, 1.5lbs/ft3
The 1.5lbs concerns me as recommendations is 1.8lbs/ft3 for a one-sided mattress.
The price of one of their 6" HD (2lbs/ft3) polyfoam mattresses is the same as the price of the pocket coil mattress. However, if I purchased the polyfoam, am I pretty much only purchasing the support layer and would need to buy a mattress topper to act as the comfort layer?
I think you may be getting a little caught up in semantics of foam layer labels, so let me see if I can help clarify things a bit. B)
To begin, yes, Memory Foam Comfort (MFC) is a site member here, which means that I think very highly of them and that I believe that they compete well with the best in the industry in terms of their quality, value, service, knowledge, and transparency. They are very knowledgeable about foams and how different layering combinations work together.
The product you mentioned, the high density (2 lb) or high resiliency (2.5 lb) polyfoam mattress, comes in 4" or 6" thicknesses, and is available in four softness designations from plush to extra firm. As MFC states, these mattresses can be used as is, or you can choose to add a latex or memory foam topper to create your own mattress comfort. What you choose, and any combination, would come down to your own personal comfort preference.
Many people sleep just fine on a 6" polyfoam mattress, and a good quality polyfoam (like these) can be quite durable and comfortable. If you’re choosing to use the polyfoam mattress by itself, the 6" would most likely be preferable, and the comfort you choose would be based upon your own personal preferences. I would place a phone call to MFC to discuss the softness that they would recommend for you if you were considering using the mattress in this manner.
If you were considering building your own mattress system, then this could change the polyfoam mattress that you would be using as your support base, and what you chose for your upper layers would have an impact upon what you might want to choose for your base layer in thickness. Again, I would recommend a phone call to MFC for popular configurations that they have found to work for people with somatotypes, BMIs and sleeping positions similar to yours.
Without getting “too far into the weeds”, this type of mattress construction is a more simplified concept called “differential construction” (see this article). You’d generally use a single comfort material atop a very high quality polyfoam core. It is imperative in this type of construction that your comfort material be of a high quality and deep enough to form your own personal “comfort cradle”.
Yes, my concern would be the same as yours, with minimal comfort material and lower density.
It seems as if you might be looking for something that is a bit on the more affordable end of the spectrum, so it can be a tradeoff at times if your budget is limited as to what might be available to you, and some people are fine with the shorter expected comfort life provided by lower density foams in order to stay within their own price limitations. The 6" polyfoam mattress from MFC would be a durable and longer-lasting product, and many people are comfortable using just this mattress, and of course you would have the ability to add a topper down the road should you desire. But again, I’d speak directly with MFC regarding your needs and concerns and I’d want to acquire their recommendations before making any final decision.
