Hi ima,
I looked them up and had a chance to talk with Michael the owner of Orthosleep products this morning. They are a wholesale manufacturer who makes mainly what are called promotional mattresses which means they are in the lower budget ranges. They sell through retail outlets and they are very open about the foams they use and the “ingredients” in their mattresses. They are good value compared to major brands that use similar quality foams.
He has been involved in the industry for 30 years, has owned mattress factories and a large textile company, and is very knowledgeable and helpful. His website http://orthosleepproducts.com/ will be up and running in about 10 days. They have many retail outlets and one of them is http://www.building19.com/index.htm who include them in their weekly specials from time to time. If one of their retailers doesn’t know the details of the foam used in a particular mattress … a quick call to Orthosleep can find out. They are certainly worth considering in the low budget ranges where they compete well.
I personally would tend to avoid the major brands … not because they don’t feel good but because when you compare them to smaller manufacturers who use similar quality foams and similar layering … they just don’t compete well on value.
For example … the Sealy Cedar Point which is a very basic low budget memory foam mattress. It sells at sears for $809 in queen. While it may or may not have a feel you like … it is nothing like the iComforts or the Tempurpedic Cloud series which use layering of different types of memory foams to create how each model feels.
Corsicana is a mid size national manufacturer which specializes in lower budget mattresses and they tend to compare well with larger manufacturers in the same price ranges (if you compare ingredients). There is better value yet though IMO by dealing with smaller or local manufacturers.
The icomfort has a very popular feel (and they have been selling like hotcakes because of it) and they have done a great job of promoting gel memory foam but again … they don’t compete well with smaller manufacturers who use similar or higher quality ingredients and sell for lower prices.
With your larger weights … and if you are committed to memory foam over other materials … I would be seriously looking at using memory foam over 5 lb density. If this isn’t possible or if the 5 lb foam you are testing doesn’t have the feel you are looking for … then I would consider a mattress which has a removeable layer or a zip cover where layers can be removed so if the lower density foams wear out prematurely then you can replace the layer rather than the whole mattress.
Some better online memory foam outlets are in post #12 here.
There are many reasons why different memory foam mattresses have different feels and different levels of softness or firmness and post #4 here goes into more detail about this often misunderstood subject.
I don’t recommend the gel top at Overnight Mattress mainly because gel memory foam is an emerging category (an offshoot of memory foam) and there are IMO better and worse ways to add gel to foam. The versions that use “beads” or “particles” are likely to be less durable than the versions that infuse the gel into the memory foam itself or add it in different ways than “particles” that are spread throughout the foam and give the foam a “false density” in terms of measuring durability. Some of the gel memory foam options are discussed in post #26 here.
My first choice would be one of the local manufacturers I mentioned and I would avoid major brands and chain stores completely. if for some reason there was nothing suitable at either of the local factory direct manufacturers that you liked … then I would look online at outlets that allowed you some options to customize your mattress in different ways or had better value.
The guidelines about the thickness of the layers are only guidelines to be confirmed with actual “lay on mattress” testing. Your wife may need thicker firmer layers than normal and you … because you sleep in all positions including your stomach … you will need the thinnest firmest comfort layer possible that relieves pressure in all positions (especially your side).
You can spend a lot of time and energy (and become increasingly overwhelmed and frustrated) focusing on brands and outlets which don’t offer the best value and don’t make it easy to know what is in them. I would make the job much simpler by visiting local manufacturers who know what is in their mattress and have the knowledge and ability to help you make better choices that are more suitable for your body weight, body shape, and sleeping positions. The alternative would be looking at some of the better manufacturers or outlets online.
Phoenix