The 10 in. Tuft & Needle Diary

[phoenix]

Hi Motoslave,

My wife and I have been sleeping on a latex bed we purchased from Ashley Furniture. I believe it was around $2000 so we thought it was going to last a long time. Unfortunately, 2 years later and we’re both having all sorts of sleep problems. I’m having back issues and my wife is having hip pains and restlessness.

Unfortunately the Ashley Furniture “latex mattresses” used a material that they called R3 on top of the latex in the mattress (see post #88 here) and they didn’t disclose what it was but it probably wasn’t even latex at all so you have most likely been sleeping on polyfoam … not latex. In other words the latex in their mattresses was “buried” too deep in the mattress to have any significant effect on durability. This is one of the reasons why it’s so important to make sure you know the type and quality of all the layers in your mattress so you can identify any weak links in a mattress (which is normally in the upper layers) and make meaningful comparisons to other mattresses.

I’m interested in the Tuft and Needle beds because I’m gun shy about buying another expensive mattress that will fail us in a few years.

The cost of a mattress or the length of a warranty has very little to do with its useful life. I would always make sure that you know the specifics of all the materials in a mattress (see this article) so you can compare them to the guidelines here so that you have a much better idea of the relative durability of the mattress compared to other mattresses.

my main concern would be how long to expect the mattress to last us since it is just pure poly foam. The temptation is to spend more on something like the Casper Mattress to at least get the durability of the latex layer. I guess that didn’t help on our last mattress though.

I would keep in mind that the durability and useful life of a mattress depends on the weak link of a mattress … not on whether it “contains” some latex. Polyfoam comes in a wide range of grades that have different densities and can be a very low quality material that lasts for months or a very high quality material that lasts for many years. The polyfoam in the Tuft & Needle is in the range of 1.8 - 2 lbs which is a good quality material that would be more durable than the lower grades of polyfoam that are found in in the comfort layers of most mainstream mattresses in much higher price ranges.

The Casper uses 1.5" of synthetic latex over 1.5" of 4 lb memory foam over a 7" base layer of 1.8 lb polyfoam. The reason for the higher cost is because the memory foam and synthetic latex are more costly materials than polyfoam but this doesn’t “translate” into better durability … only a different “feel” and performance of the mattress. This topic and this topic has more about the Casper mattress.

Post #2 here and the other posts it links to has more information about the many variables that can affect the durability and useful life of a mattress relative to different types of materials and to each person but the cost of a mattress and the length of a warranty aren’t a meaningful way to assess the durability or useful life of a mattress or how long you will sleep well on it.

Phoenix