Hi CoMo,
[quote]The nearest local manufacturer of mattresses is JC Mattress Factory in Jefferson City, Missouri. We visited a couple of weeks ago, but left quickly because the sales staff wouldn’t leave us alone. It’s hard to test out beds with a couple of strangers hovering over you!
Has anyone had any experience with JC Mattress Factory? I have been unable to find any reviews.[/quote]
Denver Mattress is another manufacturer that sells some good quality and value mattresses and they are completely transparent about the materials they use in their mattresses. They have a store in Columbia, MO area and are also included among the better options and possibilities I’m aware of in the Columbia, MO area that are listed in post #2 here (although they don’t make two sided mattresses).
I haven’t talked with JC Mattress and there is little information on their site about the mattresses they make but I’ve added them to the Columbia list. While I would be interested in knowing the types of mattresses they make … I would tend to avoid the Serta and Spring Air mattresses they carry unless you can confirm the quality of the materials inside them but if you have confirmed that they will provide the specs for any of their mattresses then they would certainly be worth a visit (see this article). Hopefully they are transparent but if for some reason they either can’t or won’t provide the information you need to make an informed purchase … then I would pass them by (as I would with any store where you aren’t able to find out the quality of the materials inside the mattresses they sell).
I would also be very cautious about using reviews as a basis for your choice (either good or bad) because reviews will tell you little if anything about whether a mattress is a suitable choice for you and will also tell you very little about the quality and durability of a mattress (see post #13 here).
If you haven’t read it already … I would start with the mattress shopping tutorial here which has all the basic information, steps, and guidelines you will need to make the best possible choices … and know how and why to avoid the worst ones and how to make meaningful comparisons between mattresses.
Post #13 here has more about the most important parts of the value of a mattress purchase. Outside of testing a mattress carefully and objectively for PPP (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief, and Personal preferences) using the testing guidelines in the tutorial post … the most important part of a mattress is to make sure you know the quality of all the materials inside it because outside of PPP … a mattress is only as good as the quality of the materials inside it (regardless of the name of the manufacturer). Once you have the information you need then you can compare the type and quality of the materials to the guidelines here to make sure there are no weak links in the mattress and make more meaningful comparisons to other mattresses. The only way to assess the quality/durability of a mattress is by knowing what is inside it because lower quality and less durable materials (in the comfort layers especially) can feel the same as higher quality more durable materials … they just don’t last as long.
If you can list all the materials and components in either of the two mattresses you were mentioning I’d also be happy to make some comments about the quality and durability of the materials inside them.
Phoenix