Hi terminaldawn,
You’re asking some great questions and lets see if I can answer them all 
IMO, the first step in looking for a mattress is finding the best outlets that offer a combination of knowledge, selection, quality, and value. This can be more important than choosing a mattress that is sold by someone who either doesn’t know or won’t tell you the quality of the materials in their mattresses (making it impossible to make any meaningful comparisons between mattresses). Manufacturers and sales people who have been in the industry in some cases for decades and have seen all the “stories” and “trends” come and go and who also know the difference between different types of materials and constructions and how they “actually” perform instead of just repeating the same stories about them are your best friend and can save you endless hours of research and help you focus on the suitability of a mattress for your own unique needs and preferences. Once you have found these outlets … then choosing a mattress that is the most suitble is a much simpler job.
In the Milwaukee area … some of the better options that I’m aware of include …
http://www.kenmichaelsfurniture.com/ Local factory direct manufacturer with outlets in Brookfield, Milwaukee, and Greenfield. I have talked with Mike here and he makes a full range of mattresses including traditional innerspring/polyfoam, memory foam and latex and has good quality and value. He is also very knowledgeable and helpful and what I call “mattress people”. I would certainly recommend a visit and including him in your research.
Directory of Verlo Mattress Locations. Find a Verlo Mattress store in your town. Regional factory direct manufacturer with several outlets in the SE Wisconson area. They make a full range of mattresses that tend to use higher quality materials and have better value than average. They can also make custom adjustments. They have recently been sold (they used to be owned by Verlo) so the effect of the sale if any is yet to be known.
http://www.steinhafels.com/findus/index.aspx local manufacturer with various outlets in the Milwaukee and surrounding area. They carry some major brands (which I would avoid) but they also carry two different lines of mattresses which they manufacture themselves which are memory foam or innerspring/polyfoam models (no latex). The knowledge level here may not be consistent from store to store. They told me that they are happy to provide the foam density specs of all their mattresses so that customers can make meaningful comparisons between mattresses in terms of quality/value.
There are several Savvy Rest dealers in and around the Milwaukee area. They sell component latex mattresses which use high quality organic Dunlop and 100% natural Talalay and are a good way to try out different combinations of latex mattresses. They are also in a more premium budget range however so I would make some good value comparisons with other latex mattresses.
http://www.pennymustard.com/ They are a retail direct outlet with for Claire Bedding which is a wholesale mattress manufacturer and Restonic licensee in Escanabe, MI. and have several stores in and around the Milwaukee area. In my conversations with both Clare bedding and Pennymustard I have found them to be open and helpful about their mattresses and they are good people. Of course each of the pennymustard outlets may have different people with varying levels of knowledge but I would suspect that they would all be higher quality salespeople that are more knowledgeable than most.
http://biltritefurniture.com/ Greenfield, WI. They carry OMI and Pure Latex Bliss which are high quality latex mattresses but may also be in higher budget ranges so once again I would make some careful value comparisons. I would ignore the major brands they also carry.
A little further away … there is a member of this site in Beloit which means that I believe they compete well with the best in the industry in terms of their quality, value, service, and transparency.
http://www.beloitmattress.com/ Local factory direct manufacturer in Beloit, WI and Rockford, IL. Ryan is the owner and again they have great knowledge and service and also make a full range of mattresses including latex, gel foam, memory foam, and traditional innerspring/polyfoam with great quality and value. I would also give them a call and include them in your research and once again pay them a visit if your call indicates that they have some mattresses that you wish to test in person.
Between these … I wouldn’t spend much time anywhere else.
[quote]6 ft 200 pounds
Wife is 5 ft 4 - 130 pounds
We both sleep about the same. We start off on our backs, and then turn to side, and occasionally stomach. We don’t have one sleep position - it really is a combination of all three. No back or neck issues. However I occasionally have issues with my shoulder, but nothing serious. [/quote]
There are some general guidelines here about various different height/weight/body shapes and here about different sleeping positions that can help as a starting point but a knowledgeable expert that knows how to fit you to mattresses they make and/or sell is much more accurate than what I call “theory at a distance” and can take into account all the individual differences and preferences between different people.
[quote]The specs of the 2 Foam mattresses I like are as follows (first listed is top layer, last listed bottom layer, and open cell).
Kodiak
3 inch Gel Foam
2 inch transitional foam
2 inches memory foam
5 inches acreloflex
Sitka
3 inch Gel Foam
2 inches memory foam
5 inches acreloflex
The spring coil I didn’t get the specs on.
The sales guy knows that the foam is made in Philadelphia, however didn’t know the name of the manufacturer.[/quote]
There are basically 3 types of foam which are memory foam (some of which have gel added to them), polyfoam, and latex. Each of these has many varieties. If a foam layer doesn’t say latex or memory foam … then it’s safe to assume tht it is just a name for polyfoam. “AcellaFlex” (rather than acreloflex) is a type of polyfoam used as a base layer and in the case of polyfoam and memory foam … the density (which they don’t list) is the most important spec used to determine the relative quality and durability of different polyfoams. AcellaFlex is made by Sleep Innovations (Advanced Urethane Technologies) and is generally a 2 lb polyfoam which is good quality and suitable for a base layer. The rest of the polyfoam (transitional foam) is missing density information, the memory foam is missing density information, and it doesn’t say what type of gel foam or the density that is being used (although this would also likely be gel foam that is made by sleep innovations that is using gel particles rather than being part of the memory foam structure itself which is IMO the least durable type of gel memory foam and similar to what is used in the iComfort).
[quote]The sales guy knows that the foam is made in Philadelphia, however didn’t know the name of the manufacturer.
Is Verlo reputable? Are there any other local places I should be looking for? Is there a particular mattress configuration I should be looking for?[/quote]
Yes Verlo is reputable although as I mentioned they have been recently sold. They are better than average value compared to mainstream outlets and larger manufacturers but because they are a franchise outlet … the quality of information you may get from outlet to outlet may vary although the mattresses are the same. They also have the advantage of being a manufacturer that they can fine tune your mattress the way you want it. I would be looking at the other three outlets I mentioned as well though and you will likely find even better value, knowledge, and service.
Most of the R & D in the major manufacturers is seeking ways to use lower quality materials and charge higher prices. They tend to use lower quality materials than local manufacturers at every price point and while they do make some good mattresses … these are priced much higher than mattresses that use equivalent quality materials made by dozens of local or regional manufacturers. They also tend to do everything they can to make meaningful comparisons virtually impossible and sell their mattresses based on marketing stories rather than the quality of materials that are in them. Major manufacturers have a product called “profit margin” that they sell to their larger customers and chain stores. These higher profit margins come with stories attached that can be used for marketing purposes. Their claims of proprietary materials are for the most part just stories with little basis in fact. They are accountable to shareholders and corporate interests or investments groups (in the cases of Serta and Simmons for example they are both owned by the Ontario Teachers Federation pension plan) and do not have local ownership that sells mattresses based on quality and their local reputation.
They are a much different business model. Would you buy a car that had a painted cardboard shape around it but there was no way to know what was inside and nobody would tell you? This is basically what the major manufacturers do … sell products based on the subjective “feel” in the highly managed environment of a showroom. They won’t give you real information about the quality of what is in the mattress. Even consumer reports threw up their hands in trying to determine how to get the information that can be used to make real quality evaluations of mattresses. While you can get the information if you dig hard enough, do enough research, and know enough people who have taken the mattresses apart … it always leads to the same story … poor value.
The Serta iComfort is a classic example of a well marketed mattress that has a great “showroom feel” with poor value. You can see an analysis of part of the lineup in post #11 here.
This video about what is happening in the industry is well worth watching and is an accurate assessment of the industry today.
I think that the simplest way to answer these questions with some basic knowledge is to read the overviews in the mattresses section of the site. This will tell you about the different materials used in the comfort (upper layers) and the support layers (lower layers) of a mattress and how they are combined in different ways to create various types of mattresses with different qualities of pressure relief, alignment, and personal preferences. The simple way is to always remember that the two basic functions of a mattress (the first overview) are to provide you with correct alignment in all your sleeping positions, pressure relief, and the preferences that are all about things like motion separation, breathability, and other factors that are purely individual preference and subjective taste. Higher quality materials means that the mattress will keep it’s “showroom performance” and qualities longer than lower quality materials.
When you find someone that already knows all this … you don’t need to learn it. If you spend an hour on the site … you will know more than most of the people who sell mattresses at most larger outlets … and you will see many eyes roll when you start to ask even basic questions about the quality of materials in their mattresses. There are some guidelines here about what to avoid that will help you avoid most of the mistakes people make when shopping for a mattress and there is an article here about what to look for and how to recognize better outlets.
For some people yes and for some people no. In general though … North American polyfoam and memory foam or foam that has been certified by organizations like CertiPur or OekoTex are considered to be safe. There are many Asian and foreign foams that I would consider “unsafe” … although they are certainly cheaper and are flooding the market with inferior mattresses. TIn spite of their cheap prices … they are another example of poor value.
The issue of electromagnetic fields is a controversial one just like cell phone radiation and each person can decide for themselves the degree of “safety” that is important to them. I personally believe that the electrical fields that are all around us anyway have a greater effect than mattress innersprings but this is an area that can get very technical and is probably outside the scope of a post like this. For all intents and purposes … I would consider innersprings as “safe”.
The bottom line is this. If we arm ourselves with some basic information (enough to ask better questions and tell when someone knows what theya re talking about) and then find a manufacturer or outlet that knows a lot more than we do and has years of decades of experience … then the odds are great that we will make a good choice.
If we are buying a mattress from an outlet that knows less than we do (or can learn in a few hours) or isn’t able (or willing) to tell you the most basic quality specs about their mattresses … or that sells mattresses based on marketing tactics such as fake sales … then the odds are great that we will end up with a lower quality higher priced mattress unless you have the time and patience to dig deep enough to find the information you need to make meaningful quality and value decisions.
I hope this helps … even though I know it was a very long reply
Phoenix