Hi, I just stumbled upon this website. I need help in picking out a replacement Mattress. In 2009 my wife and i bought a Sealy SpringFree Latex mattress with the Posterpedic box spring. We are both in the 300 pd range so we wanted a good quality bed that would provide support. From reading this website i think we made a good choice in choosing a Latex type of bed vs. the Memory foam or innerspring type.
We noticed that the bed was creaking quite a bit with the slightest movements. It was annoying to say the least. I first thought was that our weight was stressing out the metal bedFrame, so we purchase a much more rigid heavyduty type of bedframe for the bed. That didn’t touch the problem at all. Next we called the store, they sent out an inspector to check out boxspring. The inspector said he doesn’t receive many callls to inspect box springs but he looked it over and we found a bent metal support (length of boxspring in middle) causing the woodslats to compress the springs in the box. This was causing the creaks. The store did what they had to and told us to come pick out a replacement boxspring. In the meantime I stood the latex matress on its side against the wall in our bedroom to inspect the damage to the boxspring. When i laid the mattess back down i created a large hump in the middle of the latex mattess. It looked like a speed bump. It went away after a night of sleeping on it however and looked flat again. Since i could replicate this by standing the mattress up against the wall and laying it back on the boxspring I called the store and had the inspectore back over to check for 1.5" deformation. The inspector did his measurements and we came up at 1.5 exactly. The store has issues us a 1700.00 credit to pick a new bed with.
I visited the store yesterday and they have no Latex mattress in the show room. Have stores gone away from displaying latex? It seems my only choices are Temperapedic or the Icomfort series from serta. They also carry Sealy Innersprings and Sterns and Foster Innersprings. I’m a little leary of any memory foam mattress based on sleeping in the bed and body heat generated. My wife and I are 600 pds combined so you can see my worries. Between what we have availiable to us, which of these types of beds should we pick. or just keep our old one? Any help would be appreciated. I"m leaning on the Icomfort Genius but am still worried i’m making a bad choice based on some review on this site of that product.
The first thing I would suggest is to read these guidelines which can help you avoid most of the worst choices when you are mattress shopping.
As you can see … connecting with an outlet that has the knowledge, experience, and product selection and value to help you make your best choices is more important initially than trying to decide which type of mattress may be best. This way you can work with an “expert” rather than needing to become one.
Major brands such as Sealy, Stearns & Foster, Serta (and the iComfort series) and Tempurpedic that you have been looking at are all lower quality and/or value choices compared to many that are available that use higher quality materials and sell for lower prices.
If you let me know the city or zip that you live … I’d be happy to let you know of any of the better factory direct outlets or better sleep shops I know of in the area. Initial research into “where” to buy rather than into “what” to buy will lead to much better choices and better quality and value that is much more suitable for your needs and preferences in both the short and long term.
My zip code is 28516 Beaufort, NC along the coast. As you know hind sight is always 20/20. I would like to look at other places for a replacement mattress but unfortanately i’m stuck shopping at this location with the 1700.00 credit from warranty on the sealy latex i purchased in 09. I’m happy they are atleast standing by their warranty. I realize you don’t have much nice to say about the S brand mattresses but these products are the mainstream mattress you find in most furniture stores. I don’t really have the luxury of having a mattress manufacturer near me. Certainly one of the products mentioned would be a decent replacement just want the best value of the products that i have access to. Can you suggest anything? Would really like a latex for latex replacement but why don’t stores have these for display. they had them 3 years ago?
Yes … I should have read your post a little more carefully and made the “connection” that you had these limitations in which case of course any other outlets available in your area aren’t as relevant and there was no point in suggesting looking elsewhere.
There are quite a few of the forum members here that unfortunately also had the same “restrictions”. As you mentioned though, you are one of a fairly small percentage that successfully claims against a warranty and you also have the benefit of choosing what the store has available apparently instead of just a specific brand. This is the good news
It may help if I knew which store you were restricted to and I’d certainly be happy to take a look and see if there may be some better value options that they have available.
I’m not sure I would call the S&F you had a “latex” mattress but the truth is that the demands of the chain stores for profit margin is so high that a latex mattress often puts the pricing out of the range they want to sell and if other mattresses are particularly popular and it also doesn’t turn over as often as they want it to then they often don’t carry them at all. It is not unusual at all to see chain stores that have nothing I would even consider.
In cases like this though … the best bet is often to find a mattress with the best combination of a good innerspring or base foam and the least amount and firmest foam you can find in the comfort layers and then add a high quality topper for comfort and pressure relief. This gives you some of the benefit of using a high quality material for the comfort layers, will lengthen the life of the lower quality foam in the mattress comfort layers, and also gives you the chance to just change the topper if it wears out sooner than the rest of the mattress without having to buy a whole new mattress. This is normally the “best” solution for stores that don’t have any particularly good choices.
Again though … if you let me know which store then I’ll take a closer look.
You are somewhat in between a rock and a hard place.
If I was forced to choose a mattress that they carried (at least between the ones on their site) … it would probably be something like this one in the Sealy’s which has same innerspring as the other Sealy they carry but the least amount of polyfoam in the comfort layers (and is the firmest they carry) and I would add my own comfort layer with a topper. I would choose this over the Simmons with the thinnest/firmest foam layers which would be this one because I would tend to avoid the Simmons pocket coils with your weights.
Also because of your weights … I would avoid the iComforts they carry which use lower quality materials and wson’t likely stand up well.
There are two problems with this though. The first is that you won’t use up your credit with either of them (and they probably don’t sell a suitable topper) and the second is that neither of them are likely to be as durable as a Stearns & foster “latex mattress” that has less polyfoam in the comfort layers than the one you had.
Because you have a warranty exchange … you should be able to replace your mattress with a Stearns & Foster luxury latex model such as these even though they don’t carry them in the store. Because the price for warranty purposes and any extra charges would likely be more than your credit … you would have to pay any difference (and the prices in the link I posted are less than other outlets that carry these such as here). Out of these, I would choose the Villa firm because it has the least amount of polyfoam (the weak link) and the 1" of polyfoam is a higher quality and not thick enough to make a big difference when it softens. While the latex in these is not the best quality … at least it’s the best you would have available. If you went in this direction … you may still need to add a topper (good quality latex would be a good choice for this) because it may be firmer than you wanted which would add more to the expense but you would be able to use up your credit … you would have a better quality and more durable mattress than the one you are replacing (less polyfoam) … and IMO it would be worth the extra cost … especially for your circumstances and higher weights (depending to some degree of course on what that extra cost would end up being in the exchange process).
Thanks for the help. We ended up finding a Villa Firm from a store in a neighboring town (same chain). we upgraded from a Queen to A King. We ended up paying 500.00 more for the King upgrade including the waterproof cover. Hopefully i didn’t let them get me to badly, and i’ll have a better mattress with more room.
