First of all, I’d like to introduce myself as I just signed up, despite lurking for a few months. I work at a furniture store in the St. Louis area, and used my huge employee discount to buy a mattress. 1 year, two warranty claims, and about to be 3 mattresses later, I’ve decided to get a mattress from somewhere else.
I’ve done thorough research both here and other places. I actually bought a bed from Brentwood Home that held up well, but I found it too firm. Alas I made the mistake of buying a mattress from Amazon instead of directly from the manufacturer, so I didn’t know I only had 30 days to try it out.
Now, I’m debating between the Brentwood Home Bamboo Gel 13 mattress, the Nectar mattress, or either the Ultimate Dreams Supreme 12" or the Artic Dreams cooling mattresses from DreamFoam Bedding.
I know DreamFoam is a member here, but I don’t know if I should pull the trigger. One aspect of the DreamFoam mattress construction, present with both the Ultimate and Artic Dreams beds, is that the core layer is only a 1.8LB density foam. That seems rather low to me.
I’m sorry to hear about your poor experience with your old mattress. Even through it had a warranty, it’s never fun to go through that whole exchange process, regardless of the discount.
Yes, many are unaware that there can be different return/exchange policies (or none at all) when a product is offered through an online retail source other than the mattress company itself (Amazon, Wayfair, etc.), so I always recommend everyone to become completely familiar with any return/exchange policies should your purchase unfortunately not turn out as well as you had hoped.
While Dreamfoam is a site member here, which does mean that I think highly of them, and while I do recommend the members here “as a group”, I don’t make specific suggestions or recommendations for either a mattress, manufacturers/retailers, or materials because only you can feel what you feel on a mattress or decide on the types of mattresses and materials that you are most interested in trying or that you tend to prefer and there are too many unknowns, variables, and personal preferences involved for anyone to know which specific mattress design or combination of materials would be best for you based on specs (either yours or a mattress) or theory at a distance (see post #2 here ). What is “best” for you either in terms of a mattress or a manufacturer/retailer can be very different from what would be “best” for someone else.
1.8 lb. for a polyfoam core would generally be a good durability for those around 200 lbs. or so or lighter, and is the minimum I generally recommend. Over “200 pounds or so”, I would recommend 2.0 lb. or above for the polyfoam core. You can read more about this in to the durability guidelines here to make sure there are no lower quality materials or weak links in a mattress that would be a cause for concern relative to the durability and useful life of a mattress before making any purchase.
Even more important though would be learning about the upper comfort layers of a mattress, as those will “wear out” faster and be subject to more mechanical stresses.
The Dreamfoam Ultimate Dreams Supreme Gel 12" uses 1.5" of 4 lb. gel memory foam and 2.5" of 4" lb. memory foam over an 8" 1.8 lb. polyfoam core. You didn’t specify which Arctic Dreams model you’re comparing, but they use 3 lb. Energex high-performance polyfoam in 2"-3" over a conservatively classified 1.55 lb. polyfoam core (specs out to 1.75 lb.). Overall, the Arctic Dreams is a great quality/value choice and you’d be hard pressed to find better quality/density materials in a mattress in this budget range.
The Nectar uses a 1" of 4 lb gel memory foam, a 3-inch 3.5 lb memory foam with a medical grade cooling and finally a 2.2 lb polyfoam core. They don’t list the thickness of the polyfoam core, or the thickness of the quilted gel memory foam panel or the density of that material. The polyfoam core uses a good density foam, but I would use some caution with the 3" of 3.5 lb. memory foam on top of the core, as that is a bit lower than I would normally recommend. They are a product assembled in the USA of components sourced from China and the US. They do not specific what is from where. I would caution against purchasing this item before knowing the complete specifications and component origins.
There is no meaningful information about the Brentwood Home Bamboo Gel 13" mattress on their web site. It has a 7.5" polyfoam core, on top of which is a 2" polyfoam layer with holes drilled in it, and then a 3.5" gel memory foam layer. A poster on Amazon listed the polyfoam core at 2 lb., the memory foam at 4 lb. and the middle 2" polyfoam layer at 2 lb., but you’d want to inquire directly with them to confirm this before making a purchasing decision.
