I’ve been reviewing your site over the past couple of weeks to try to gain more insight into what to look for in our new mattress;. in general we want a mattress that is good for my husband’s bad back and doesn’t sleep very warm, since he sleeps hot. We both liked the comfort and feel of the Stress-o-Pedic/Therapedic Bellaire pillow top mattress, which Spencer’s in Ventura had listed for around $1400 for a Cal King.
I asked Stress-o-Pedic for more detail about the mattress and got the information below.
The Quilt has 1 ¼" of 1.2 Lb 17 IFD Poly foam, 3/8" Dunlop (60/40 blend is my best guess) and FR Fire barrier.
The Pillow Fill is 2 ½" of 1.5 Lb 15 IFD
Cap Foam is 2" 1.5 Lb 24 IFD
Coil is a 6" 546 count pocketed coil with 6" 1.5 Lb 50 IFD Foam Rails
Base foam 2" 1.2 LB 50 IFD
Does including this amount of latex ONLY in the quilt material really make any noticeable difference in the mattress feel compared with no latex at all (particularly compared with mattresses that include latex in the main mattress/pillow top)?
*Those polyfoams are soft to medium soft IDL, from looking at your categories, and the resulting feel was comfortable. Not a lot of info was provided on what the foams are actually made up of, which I suppose could be proprietary? Is the pound weightage of the foam useful here?
All in all, during our testing of the mattress it seemed to meet our “PPPs”; I’d really appreciate your feedback on whether you think those would hold up over time given the mattress materials.
Yes. Every layer and component in a mattress (including the cover and any quilting materials) will have an effect on the feel and response of every other layer and component in the mattress above and below it and on the mattress “as a whole”.
ILD/IFD is only one of several specs that makes one material feel softer or firmer than another (see post #4 here) and the ILD or IFD of different materials or even different types of the same material aren’t directly comparable to each other (see post #6 here).
When you are testing mattresses locally then knowing the ILD/IFD of the individual layers is unimportant because your body will tell you whether the mattress “as a whole” is a good match for you in terms of comfort, firmness, and PPP.
Unless you are a foam chemist … knowing the specifics of the chemicals in the formulation of different types of foam would be meaningless and are unimportant as well and there would be no reason for a consumer to know this. The information that you need to know about the layers and components in a mattress are in this article and all you really need to know is the type of foam and in the case of polyfoam or memory foam the density of the foam layers (density is the single biggest variable in the durability of memory foam or polyfoam).
There is more about the 3 most important parts of the “value” of a mattress purchase in post #13 here which can help you make more meaningful quality/value comparisons between mattresses in terms of suitability (how well you will sleep), durability (how long you will sleep well), and the overall value of a mattress compared to your other finalists based on suitability, durability, and all the other parts of your personal value equation that are most important to you (including the price of course and the options you have available after a purchase if your choice doesn’t turn out as well as you hoped for).
While nobody can speak to how any specific mattress will “feel” for someone else or whether it will be a good “match” in terms of comfort, firmness, and PPP because this is too subjective and relative to different body types, sleeping positions, and individual preferences, sensitivities, and circumstances and you are the only one that can feel what you feel on a mattress … outside of PPP (which is the most important part of “value”), the next most important part of the value of a mattress purchase is durability which is all about how long you will sleep well on a mattress. This is the part of your research that you can’t see or “feel” and assessing the durability and useful life of a mattress depends on knowing the specifics of its construction and the type and quality/density of the materials inside it regardless of the name of the manufacturer on the label (or how a mattress feels in a showroom or when it is relatively new) so again I would always make sure that you find out information listed here so you can compare the materials and components to the quality/durability guidelines here to make sure there are no lower quality materials or weak links in a mattress that would be a cause for concern relative to the durability and useful life of a mattress before making any purchase.
The latex in the quilting is a high quality material but the polyfoam layers in the top 6" of the mattress are lower quality/density materials than the minimum 1.8 lb density in the durability guidelines that I would normally consider for a one sided mattress … especially in the budget range you are looking at. They would be a weak link in the mattress which means that the risk of premature foam softening and breakdown that can lead to the premature loss of the comfort and/or support of the mattress would be higher than I would consider unless you were in a much lower budget range.