I actually started looking at beds, beginning at Sleepy’s and got the full treatment. I was looking for two twins and a queen and the beds they had were very nice but I left the store with a quote of $3000 and that’s a lot more than I’d like to spend right now. I am replacing beds, not starting from scratch and my kids were very vocal about wanting foam toppers anyway and will be leaving for college soon and my wife’s and my bed is old but still very firm, and so, why not toppers.
There are so many choices and I read a lot this weekend and have narrowed my choice down to aim for 4" thick, 4 lb foam toppers. For about the same money, I could also go for a 5 lb, 3" topper; I’m not really sure how best to decide between the two. It’s not that easy to look for toppers by both thickness and density on most sites, unless you get to one of the premium sites and then you start to spend more money.
One site a came up with was the Foam Factory in Michigan. Not the cheapest but not the most expensive either; $109 for the twins and $179 for the queen. They are Certipur certified, and have 60 day return, with a 7 year warranty on the 4 lb and 10 year on the 5 lb.
Any specific experience with this company would be appreciated as well as what I might want to ask them about their foam. Suggestions for other companies would also be welcome.
Adding a topper is an excellent way to add additional pressure relief to the top of a mattress (typically to eliminate pain, discomfort, or restless sleep caused by too much pressure on a body area). By contrast, adding a topper will not add any additional support to your mattress, and depending on the circumstances can cause you to sleep out of alignment / non suitable posture, which may evidence itself as back pain in the morning.
Anyhow, to help guide you for how to evaluate if you’re putting together a wonderful combination for yourself, this wonderful post by Phoenix helps guide you on finding a suitable mattress for yourself (and yes, I know you asked about toppers, but toppers are a means to modify a mattress to make it more suitable for you):
Also, one of many posts about toppers is here. Phoenix outlines what you’re looking for, the fact that different sleeping positions have different requirements, that you’re best off getting the thinnest topper that does the job, and has links to places to get some.
I would suggest caution in dealing with Foam Factory (AKA Foam by Mail or FBM). You can read more about them in post #2 here and in post #2 here.
Post #2 here has links to the forum lists that include the better options and possibilities I’m aware of that are closest to you. You may need to call them to find out the specifics of any toppers they sell.
I ran into a Yankee Mattress outlet in Enfield, CT yesterday and was impressed with their price/quality, but I did not see any toppers. Similarly, I haven’t see any toppers at the other local direct manufacturers on their websites. I did get the sense at the Yankee Mattress company that they were quite willing to do custom orders, so, what questions do I need to ask about their foam. Having read some of your posts, I am thinking that 3", 4lb foam will be fine for us.
Many manufacturers or retailers don’t have everything they sell on their sites so I would just call and ask them if they carry 4 lb memory foam toppers in the thickness you are considering (or perhaps 2" as well so you can see the difference) and I would make sure that it is either made in North America or is Certipur certified. If you have the chance to test them in person then you won’t need to ask how they compare to other types of memory foam in terms of temperature or response time because you will be able to feel it in person. If they are local I would test the topper on a mattress that is as close as possible to the mattress you sleep on so you will have a better sense of how it may feel on your own mattress and I would spend at least 20 minutes on the topper so that it has a good chance to soften and warm up with your body heat.
I checked out two of the local places today, New England Mattress factory and Sigma, both of whom are in Agawam, MA. I went to Sigma first. Alex, the owner was very friendly and the only one there. He showed me a 3" topper that was 1 1/2 inch 4lb memory foam and 1 1/2 inch soy foam. He wanted to build it into a quilted top for $400 but he eventually gave me a price of $200 for just the foam in queen and another $200 for a pair of twins. I have no idea what the soy foam is but he said it added better ventilation. He was very nice - a self made guy from Ukraine. I told him I liked the pillow he had me laying on and he gave it to me. I think I liked the foam I layed on. I know I am not going to get ultimate comfort from putting a topper on my old (but still pretty firm) mattress but am hoping for some additional comfort at a low price.
My stop at New England Mattress factory was not as satisfying. They only had a sample of their foam, a 4.5 lb gel memory priced at $219 for the queen and $170 apiece for the twins, so more expensive with no trial. He also kind of snapped at me saying he would honor the price he quoted me but wouldn’t give it to anyone else. I had a better experience at their other retail outlet when I was looking at their beds and they had a variety of bed styles at reasonable prices.
I wish I had a better handle on this hybrid memory soy topper at Sigma.
The soy foam is likely memory foam (or could be poly foam too I suppose), except they’ve removed a smallish percentage of the regular chemicals that are used to make memory foam and instead use soy (or other plant based). You’d still want to know the density of it. As to better comfort, I’ve not heard that soy based foam is specifically better… Although they may have molded it different with pinholes or a different shape to allow ventilation.
There’s a good link on this forum about soy based foams by Phoenix, Which I can’t see right now. Anyhow, if you search it might pop up for you.
There is more about soy foams in the link dn provided. While soy derived polyols can be used in either memory foam or polyfoam … I would think in this case it’s polyfoam which not only can add some ventilation compared to memory foam but also add some resilience so it would have more of a combination of a slow and fast response feel. “Soy based” polyfoam can be directly compared to regular polyfoam (based on density) in terms of durability.
Did you get a chance to test the toppers you were looking at on a mattress that was similar to yours?
As an experiment you can test a topper on a very soft mattress and a very firm mattress to get a sense of how much difference the underlying mattress can make on how a topper feels and performs…
A topper is much easier to replace than a mattress so while it’s still important to use good quality materials in a topper so you can have some reasonable assurance that they won’t just last a matter of months (and I would want to know the density of the polyfoam) … the density of the materials is a little less important in a topper compared to how it feels and performs because it can be replaced so easily.
That’s a very good question. Our mattress is a “Golden Era” Therapedic we bought in Chicago 25 years ago. It was a very firm mattress when we bought it and is still pretty firm with some mild compressions, with little in the way of a top comfort layer. I am thinking of this as a transitional purchase to delay expense and begin researching a new bed. I thought I had approximated it at the store but now that I think back the closest thing I remembered when I got home to our bed was a firm bunk mattress he had. He also had a three inch latex pad for more money I may try, just to see what latex is like, though I realize there are many variations of latex, just as in memory foam.
I don’t know the specifics of your mattress or how it feels after 25 years so you would need to go by feel in choosing a mattress that was as close as possible to yours for testing the toppers. The mattress underneath plays a big role in how effective a topper would be for you (a certain topper may be suitable on one mattress but not as much on another).
The advantage of local testing (if the base mattress is close to yours) is that you can use your actual experience as the basis for your choice instead of having to go by “theory”.
So I went back to both New England Mattress and Sigma, both in Agawam Ma. I decided to let the stuffy showroom guy at New England show me his mattresses, and he was actually quite nice about it. Their primary core is wrapped coiled springs with a variety of layers on top, ranging from very little to various types of poly, memory, and latex foam. A poly foam top ran about $700 to $800 and the latex combo ran about $1900 for queens. They were certainly more comfortable than my mattress.
I next went to Sigma and asked Alex to show me his mattresses. He takes you in the back and actually shows you how he builds them, again, with primarily an individual coiled spring core and various layers, though his prices were better, ranging from $600 to $1300 for a top with latex. He had cheaper traditional coil options as well. He said the latex was 100% natural talalay. Really nice guy - yesterday he gave me a pillow and today he gave me a pen with a flashlight in it. He has numerous densities of soy polyfoam he uses and would configure the mattress anyway you wanted, and would pull it apart to put a different foam in if you weren’t happy. It’s got more of a working class feel to the space than high class, but if he has what you want, he’d be a great guy to buy from.
He offered to let me take the memory foam topper home to try for a few days. I in turn offered to go ahead and buy two twin toppers for my kids for $100 apiece. We’ll see how they work out.
The first night was a big improvement. I had less pain in my shoulders and I think I have less pain in my neck, which I think was using via two pillows to help support my shoulders - I still have to figure out the pillow part of this new set up.
