I have several questions regarding the latex mattress I just purchased from Sleep EZ… So far (after 1 night), my wife and I seem to be happy with our new mattress configured as:
Hers: SD | SD | FD
Mine: MTB | FD | EFD
My wife is thinking that hers side is a little softer than she remembered when we tried that configuration at a SavvyRest dealer in our area. I believe I heard somewhere that the Dunlop process is such that more rubber rests toward the bottom of a layer during the manufacturing process making the layer a little firmer one one side. If that is true, I suspect we could flipone or more layers to increase firmness for her. Also, If that is true, is there a way to look at the layer to determine which side is going to be more firmer? So far, I have not been able to tell (for sure) by compressing each side.
2nd Question… Down the road as I lose more weight, we are considering the possibility of swapping our two top layers which would give us the following configration:
Hers: MTB | SD | FD
Mine: SD | FD | EFD
Am I right in thinking this will give her a little more firmness and I a little more cradling effect? I guess another way of asking is to question if A MTB layer is firmer than a SD layer.
3rd Question… Will it hurt the matress or overall mattress shape if we place a soft dunlop beneath a medium talalay blend? Related to this, is it OK, in general, to place a softer layer beneath a firmer layer?.
I’m asking all these questions to see what options we may have if she decides, after warranty that she needs more firmness.
Thanks for letting us know what you ended up deciding and for taking the time to share some of your initial comments and feedback as well.
You certainly made a great quality/value choice … and congratulations on your new mattress
This could be because subjective memory for firmness tends to be somewhat inaccurate over time (it’s more accurate to make side by side comparisons in real time), because the Savvy Rest configuration is actually a little firmer than your SleepEz configuration, or because the Savvy Rest mattress has been broken in among several other reasons as well. While the Savvy Rest mattresses are “similar” to SleepEZ … they aren’t exactly the same.
This is true although some people may notice a difference and some won’t because the difference in a 3" layer wouldn’t be a lot.
There are probably other ways that would be more noticeable or effective that you can use to change the comfort or support of your mattress if that were to become necessary but it’s certainly possible to flip the layers if you wish to see if it makes a difference that you can feel. If there is still a label on any of the layers then you could tell which was the top and bottom based on which way was right side up on the label but other than that you would need to go by “feel”. If you can’t feel a difference between one side or the other with the layer on the floor then it probably wouldn’t be worth flipping it.
That would depend on the specific ILD of each layer you were comparing. A medium Talalay that was in the 30 - 32 range would probably feel firmer for most people than most “soft” Dunlop layers that are in the low 20’s. Softer layers in general will be more “cradling” than firmer layers and with two layers that are the same ILD Talalay will tend to be more cradling than Dunlop because it has a lower compression modulus (the rate that a material becomes firmer as you compress it more deeply).
Again you may be speculating about making more “finely grained” changes or predictions than is necessary or even possible because different people can have different opinions about how they may compare. There is more about how Dunlop compares to Talalay in post #7 here but if you need to make any changes I would tend to stick with more basic changes based on your actual experience on the mattress over the coming weeks as your mattress breaks in a little and as your body adjusts to the feel of a sleeping surface than it’s used to (see post #3 here).
In the first few weeks of sleeping on a mattress I would tend to avoid too much speculation about potential changes that may or may not be necessary down the road and if and when any changes may be necessary I would use your actual experience along with a conversation with SleepEZ to decide on the type of changes that would have the best chance of success rather than basing them on “theory” that can quickly lead to information overload.
No it won’t hurt the mattress although I would be cautious about using a soft layer on the very bottom of a mattress. A firmer layer on top of a softer layer is what I call a dominating or dominant layer and there are certainly people that prefer it over the more “typical” progressive approach where the softer layers are on top of the firmer layers. There is more about dominating layers in post #33 here and the posts it links to.
