Summary of Decision to Purchase a Bed

[phoenix]

Hi sammie,

Thanks for adding your thoughts on your mattress buying process. I agree with much of what you stated, and there’s a few things I’d like to add.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to rely on any one resource or website for assistance because the first lesson made clear by many of these websites, deliberate or not, is to Trust No One.

You certainly should verify information of what is contained within a mattress, but this is where I actually recommend to reply upon the guidance of a reliable mattress vendor or manufacturer. As far as believing everything you read online, unfortunately it is the case that you’d want to educate yourself first so that you can personally validate information that you come across.

The major bed manufacturers are controlled by two different companies that have a virtual duopoly on the industry.

There are roughly 500 mattress brands available domestically, but according to Furniture Today approximately 92% of sales are from the Top 15 brands. Online-only companies are eating a bit into this percentage. Serta and Simmons are “partners” (owner by AOT Bedding Super Holdings, Ares Management and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan), and Tempurpedic and Sealy combined to form Tempur/Sealy. Select Comfort comes in at #5, followed by Corsicana, Therapedic, Comfort Solutions, Englander and Restonic. These are all separate companies from Serta, Simmons and Tempur/Sealy.

They offer substandard beds that include a high percentage and variety of cheap petro-chemical foams to save costs in manufacturing, and to get you back into the mattress store as quickly as possible because preto-chemical foams are not durable.

Unfortunately many of these manufacturers are using lower density foams that do result in a shorter comfort life, but there are many polyfoams that are durable. True high-density and high-resiliency polyfoam, and even some of the newer generation of high performance ultra-high density polyfoams, can be quite durable. But these are not what you’d generally find being used by the largest mattress companies.

Perto-chemical foams, otherwise known as polyurethane foam, is bad news.

While I respect that this may be your personal opinion, I wouldn’t agree that all polyfoam is “bad news”, and personally wouldn’t have a concern as long as any polyfoam being considered had at least a CertiPUR-US certification and met the minimum durability guidelines here.

Memory foam is polyurethane foam. This stuff is essentially a plastic.

Memory foam is technically a slower recovery type of polyurethane foam, that is correct. Although the starting materials in each case belong to similar broad classes (polyisocyanate and polyols in each case, together with water), those starting materials differ in their specifics, in very important ways. The HR and conventional flexible polyurethane foams are made primarily from polyether polyols that have hydroxyl equivalent weights of 1000 to 2000, whereas VE foams are made primarily from polyols that have equivalent weights that are typically 230 to 350, combined with higher equivalent weight polyols to produce a polymer with a glass transition temperature (Tg) above - 20°C and up to 50°C. While polyurethane is probably the largest member of the polymer (or plastic) group, polyurethane foam takes on many different properties from the layperson term of “plastic”.

It is cheap to manufacture and manipulate into various foams offering very different varieties and feels, levels of softness, etc.

Lower density polyfoam is less expensive to produce than higher-density poly foam, and both will generally be less expensive to produce than latex foam.

However, their ability to support weight and their durability are similar.

There are large differences in the ability of visco-elastic memory foam and standard polyfoam to support weight, and there are also large variances in their durability. Memory foam will generally have a very low resilience and a higher hysteresis (not be very supportive), where polyfoam can be made in lower ILDs that won’t be very supportive, or higher ILDs that can be quite supportive. The durability of both memory foam and polyfoam is strongly correlated to the density.

Latex foam is natural and vastly more durable than petro-chemical foam. It comes from the rubber tree. As such, it is much more expensive.

The rubber component of latex foam can be made from an all-natural source (referred to commonly as 100% NR latex), an all-synthetic source (100% SBR), or a blend of the two. The sourcing of the raw materials and the involved production process are major reasons for the higher cost of latex foam.

Many small market manufacturers offer latex mattresses that turn out to be less expensive than the traditional high dollar mattresses from the big manufactures.

Excellent point.

An all foam mattress is inert, where as a hybrid mattress offers some liveliness and bounciness, like a traditional mattress most folks have used at one time or another.

There are many all-latex mattresses that are quite buoyant in their feel, some even more “lively” than their innerspring counterparts. A foam mattress using memory foam to some extent can be very “dead” feeling and have a low resilience.

Adjustable foundations, as opposed to a classic inner spring, are considered by the websites to be a worthwhile addition to a good mattress.

Whether or not a power foundation would make a good addition to someone’s sleep set would depend upon their own personal preferences and personal value equation. I would suggest that anyone looking at a mattress take the time to determine if they will actually use the features of a power foundation to justify the added cost, as many retailers, especially the “big box” stores, are showing their mattresses almost exclusively upon power foundations to capitalize upon the current popularity of these items (and the larger sale amount ).

they are not much more expensive than fancy nonadjustable foundations offered by some retailers and mattress manufacturers.

A foundation is the non-flexing bottom part of a sleep set (what some people mistakenly refer to with most beds as a box-spring). Perhaps you were referring to platform beds and bed sets? You are correct that many of these can be quite expensive.

Try to find a local mattress manufacturer or assembler that offers natural latex mattresses or some derivative at reasonable prices. There are many good ones out there.

That is excellent advice, as if someone is considering latex and has never slept upon it nothing can replace their own careful and personal testing in a showroom.

As a result of this research, I have chosen to purchase a hybrid latex mattress from a mattress assembler that happens to be endorsed on this website.

I’m happy that you’ve found something that you like – congratulations! :cheer: Many people I know in the industry who can sleep on anything they want choose a pocketed spring system with latex on top, although that should have no bearing on what anyone else decides to purchase. What did you end up ordering? I’d be interested in learning about your feedback on the item once you’ve had a chance to sleep upon it for a while.

Thanks for letting me add to your commentary.

Phoenix