Update - Questions in RED
I purchased the CPS foundation and installed it last night. In January or February, I pulled the old box spring out from under the mattress. I literally wrestled it out from under the mattress. It groaned and creaked like crazy and visibly looked sagged in the middle, so I think you are right that it wasn’t strong enough to support both myself and the mattress. I continued to have back fatigue even with the latex mattress on the floor, so I determined that it was being caused by one of two problems: Muscle weakness, or the top soft or middle medium layers being a bit too firm at the shoulder, but just about right at the hip, causing misalignment and an odd shoulder position.
I talked to Shaun again at SleepEZ and decided to go with the CPS foundation which was at a better price point than other slat foundations. I thought Flobeds looked well done, but $600 was hard to swallow. Shaun steered me towards purchasing it directly from CPS to save a little money – which was very nice of him, but may also speak to the quality issues I’ve seen reported on this foundation.
I had read all the reviews so I was prepared to be a little disappointed. The foundation went together okay and it feels sturdy enough. My biggest complaint was that the slats were advertised to be no more than 3" apart an in fact, they are 4.25" apart. That is a big difference!
I have a pretty sturdy Ikea iron bed, but no center support for the mattress. I also have bed beam which adds up to 3 center supports. You only need one support for a queen bed, but I always use all three of them–might as well!. I centered them near the shoulder and hip points. Put the foundation on top of that, then the plywood layer, then the latex mattress.
Adding plywood. Shaun had encouraged me to add a 3/4" plywood sheet to the top of the foundation. I originally purchased a 1/8" plywood cover for my old foundation, and I put that on the new foundation and lay down across it and it seems to be sturdy enough. I didn’t feel it sagging anywhere. So I put the latex mattress on top of that. Do you think its a mistake to stick with the 1/8" cover, and should I purchase a 3/4" plywood cover for the foundation?
The mattress feels much firmer on top of the foundation (back on the bed frame) than it did on the floor with no foundation. This makes absolutely no sense to me, so I think it must be in my head…unless you have an explanation for it.
My next step is to purchase a 3" 20ILD Talalay topper from FMB. My thinking for going with the 20ILD is to add the softest layer I can find at the shoulder which should help me sink in more. [color=#ff0000]Will it just exaggerate the current problem of being too firm at the shoulder and just about right at the hip? If so, how would you suggest I tackle that problem?
Regarding the 3" topper from FBM, and considering I have a protect-a-bed mattress cover (the slip over elastic kind that only has the rubber at the top), should I buy a separate cover for the topper layer or just put the latex on top of the existing mattress, and put the protect-a-bed cover over the top of it?[/color]