Clarification on some info I was given at stores

[phoenix]

Hi treje,

Pocket coils coming unglued is a cause of mattress failure. (One store said that’s why they don’t carry pocket coils, because they are unreliable)

This is “sometimes true”. This can be an issue in some cases but it’s not common and the failure of a support system in a mattress is much less common than the softening or compression and the “failure” of the comfort materials above it and in most cases the weakest link of a mattress is in the upper layers, not in the support system.

Pocket coils can only be made in one-sided mattresses (this store had mostly two sided mattresses)

This one is false. Pocket coils can and are made in two sided versions and even a quick google search on “two sided pocket spring mattress” will turn up examples.

Continuous coils move together better, because it’s all one coil. The comparison was made to the Golden Gate bridge and how stable it is, because it has one coil going through the bridge that all moves in unison.

This would be “somewhat correct” but it’s also “somewhat misleading”. Continuous coils are made with a single piece of wire so each coil would be joined to a neighboring coil through the coiling process itself (alternating at the top or the bottom of the coils) in addition to being joined by the helical wires that are also used in a Bonnell and Offset coils so they would “act together” in unison with their neighboring coils more than other types of coil systems. This can result in a more evenly supportive surface at the expense of individual contouring. They also are less costly to make and tend to use more wire on the top and bottom surface of the innerspring and the coils themselves have less turns inside them (in between the top and bottom surface). It’s certainly not true that compression of the coils in one part of the mattress would affect the coils that are some distance away from the coils that are being compressed because they aren’t “suspended” from a single wire and suspension systems are very different from mattress innersprings that work to distribute compression forces.

There is more about the different types of innersprings in this article and in post #10 here. In general … it’s usually best to assess a mattress “as a whole” for the properties and characteristics that are important to you in terms of PPP (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief, and Personal preferences such as motion isolation) rather than getting caught up in trying to compare the technical aspects of the coils they use that are only one part of the overall function and performance of the mattress.

Phoenix