I need a mattress for occasional use at a 2nd home. “Occasional” means probably 7-10 days/month. I sleep on a Tempurpedic Cloud Supreme (2013 model) for my everyday mattress and it has greatly improved my sleep and comfort level after having back surgery last year. I no longer toss & turn at night from pressure points and I don’t wake up in pain in my low back.
I’m looking for a good quality, but more budget friendly memory foam mattress for a 2nd home. Proper spinal alignment is most important to me, as well as pressure-point relief in the comfort layers. Since it will get only occasional use, I also don’t want to “overspend.”
The two mattresses I’m considering based on recommendations from this forum are both from Dreamfoam – the 12" Supreme (1.5" 4 lb. Gel & 2.5" 4 lb. memory foam); and the 13" Gel Memory Foam (3" 4 lb. Gel & 4" 5 lb. Memory foam. Both have the core layer of 8" HD poly foam. These seem to be good quality at an affordable price. Dreamfoam compares their 12" Supreme to the Tempurpedic Cloud Supreme.
My questions:
Am I in the right quality range for a mattress that will receive occasional use?
Are there other mattresses I should consider?
Could I step down a little (for example to their 11" Gel Memory foam mattress, which uses 2.5" of 3lb. gel memory foam over 8.5" HD poly foam) without sacrificing comfort?
I would think you are “in the range” yes although this will depend to some extent on your body weight. You can see the “normal” guidelines I would use for foam quality/density specs in post #4 here but for occasional use I would consider mattresses that are “one step down” in terms of the quality/density of the materials which means that for “average” weight ranges I would use 3 lb memory foam as a minimum and for higher body weights I would use 4 lbs. I would continue to use 1.5 lbs as a minimum for the density of the polyfoam support layer.
Comfort and durability though are completely separate issues. Foam density is closely related to durability and how long a material will maintain it’s original properties but both lower density and higher density materials can come in a wide range of firmness levels so if you can’t test a mattress in person for PPP then I would make sure you have a more detailed conversation with an online manufacturer or retailer so they can help “talk you through” which of their mattresses would be most suitable for you because it’s not really possible to use quality/density specs to predict how a mattress will feel or perform for you in terms of PPP (see mattress firmness/comfort levels in post #2 here).
Post #4 here includes some of the better online sources I’m aware of for lower budget memory foam mattresses but if you know that the Tempurpedic Cloud Supreme is a good match for you in terms of PPP then it would make sense to choose a mattress that you can confirm is reasonably close because that would cover both the suitability part and the durability part of the overall “value” of your purchase (see post #13 here).