Phoenix, let me start out with saying I truly appreciate what you are doing here! I have been greatly enlightened by this site and your responses to various threads!
Carrying on; I brought this over from another thread regarding Latex mattresses.
Seeing as the above list concerns Latex mostly, I wonder if you could tell me and the Albany crowd alike, if there are any other good (and may be even honest) outlets in this area might be besides the already mentioned ones?
What about good brands of mattresses featuring HR/HD Polyfoam?
I’ll start with your last question first because that’s part of the answer to your other questions as well
The better brands … or more accurately manufacturers … are the ones who are transparent about their materials. These are the ones who willingly tell their customers the quality of all the foams in their mattresses whether they are polyfoam, memory foam, or latex. Most of the manufacturers who use higher quality polyfoam are local manufacturers that don’t have a recognizable name but can be identified by their willingness to identify the density of the polyfoam in their mattresses (especially in the comfort layers which tends to be the weak link of all mattresses). If they are wholesale manufacturers who sell to retail outlets … then the willingness of the outlets that sell them to pass on this information is also just as important. Lower density polyfoam can make a very comfortable and supportive mattress … the problem is that the comfort and/or support won’t last for as long. If the price “matches” the lower durability … then there is no problem in terms of value. If however the price doesn’t match their use of lower quality materials or if there is no way to know this for sure (which is the case in almost all major brands that most people would recognize) … then it’s always better (and most often accurate) to assume that any polyfoam used in the comfort or quilting layers is lower density foam.
I’m glad you brought up the list I posted previously because I don’t know what I was thinking. Even some of the manufacturers listed in the Boston thread are closer than the manufacturer I listed in Brockton and there is an Albany thread here which lists several factory direct outlets within 100 miles which isn’t close I know but is certainly closer than what I had. I’m guessing I somehow used the wrong city for a reference point. In any case, while they are still not exactly “close” to you (they are within 100 miles), at least two of them fit the profile you are looking for.
I’ve updated the post you quoted so that only relatively local outlets are included and because a couple were out of business. Thanks for bringing it up again so I could make the corrections
I don’t know of any major manufacturers who list the specs of all the polyfoam in their mattresses and of course this would also mean the retailers who sold them wouldn’t have the specs either. Most of them use higher density in their support layers (and more willingly give this information out with a little digging) but in the comfort layers where the lower density foam is usually found and becomes the weak link of the mattress … this information is much more difficult to find. Outside of local and regional manufacturers who sell factory direct or through smaller retail outlets … it is rare to say the least that the larger manufacturers make this information easily available to consumers (for obvious competitive reasons).
The list I posted before (and now corrected) includes possibilities for testing latex or even memory foam but I wouldn’t purchase a mattress that used polyfoam comfort layers from anyone unless I made a phone call first that asked “do you provide the density of all the polyfoam layers in your mattresses” and they indicated that they both knew it and were willing to provide it. I don’t know of any outlets in the Albany area (or for that matter anywhere else) where this information is easy to find outside of the better local and regional manufacturers. The biggest difficulty when it comes to typical outlets isn’t finding polyfoam but avoiding it. If that was my material of choice and I was shopping at a mainstream outlet … then focusing on smaller brands who have less expensive mattresses where the risk of low density polyfoam is somewhat offset by lower prices would be the direction I would go (although I would still have trouble buying anything that I didn’t know what was in it). The Albany list does include a few manufacturers that may have better value in their mattress range but again without knowing the specs of the foams in a particular it’s very difficult to make meaningful comparisons.
