I am new to the site, been reading a lot of stuff over the past couple days on here and really good stuff. I am sure their is a post somewhere on here so I apologize for asking this question.
Do you know how many foam-memory foam manufactures are in the USA. The reason I ask is Serta, Simmons and other main brands say their foams and memory foams are made by them directly and made is the USA. Been researching and found a couple manufactures, Foamex, Foamite, however cannot find anything on any of the main brands manufacturing except Temper-Pedic which actually makes their own.
Have been shopping around for awhile went ahead and got the Icomfort Prodigy to try it out. Never owned a full foam mattress before. Taking it back to Mattress Firm, and will keep looking. The Serta guy was their and said that Serta manufactures all their own stuff, they have over 20 manufacturing plants all over the world and stuff like that. Funny I can’t find any proof that any major brands except Temper…that manufactures all their own stuff including Foam-memory foam.
Been looking at and trying to research the so-called Hybrid beds-any thoughts if their is a possibility their could be a good out their. Looked at the Serta 2014 models that just came out in the Iseries Profile collection.
I don’t know exactly no but most of the Polyfoam and memory foam manufacturers (although not all of them including Tempurpedic which makes their own memory foam and a few others) are listed on the CertiPur site here* along with some that aren’t American. US manufacturers that make latex of one kind or another in the US are Latex International (Talalay), Latexco (continuous pour Dunlop), and Mountaintop Foam (continuous pour Dunlop). The major brands (including Serta and Simmons and Sealy) don’t make their own foam (either polyfoam, memory foam, or latex foam) and buy it from one of the foam manufacturers.
I would keep in mind that there are several types of foam (latex foam, polyfoam, memory foam) and all of them are very different so a “full foam” mattress can use some very different materials and of course there are tens of thousands of designs and many differences between them in terms of the quality and durability of the foam. Serta manufactures their own mattresses … not their own foam.
The first place to start your mattress research is the tutorial post here which has all the basic information, steps, and guidelines that can help you make the best choices … and learn how to avoid the worst ones (including Serta and the other major brands).
“Hybrid” doesn’t really have any specific meaning outside of the fact that it would use different types of materials in the same mattress. For example a mattress that used latex comfort layers and a polyfoam core would often be called a “latex/polyfoam hybrid”. A memory foam mattress usually uses memory foam in the top layers and polyfoam in the support core so it would be a “memory foam/polyfoam hybrid” but they are usually just called a memory foam mattress. A mattress that used a memory foam comfort layer and an innerspring support core would be a memory foam/innerspring hybrid. Even most “traditional” innerspring mattresses are really a hybrid and use polyfoam in the comfort layers and an innerspring as the support core so these would also be a polyfoam/innerspring hybrid although they are normally just called an “innerspring” mattress and don’t specify the material in the comfort layers (just like memory foam mattresses don’t specify the material in the support layers). There are also yybrid mattresses that use comfort layers with more than one type of material (such as a mix of polyfoam and memory foam or latex) so these could also be called a “hybrid” mattress regardless of what type of support core they have (generally an innerspring of some kind, latex, or polyfoam).
It’s usually more effective to focus on the specific materials rather than more generic names such as “hybrid” which could be used to describe almost any mattress that uses more than one type of material (which is most of the mattresses on the market).
Thanks Phoenix for the info. I requested from mattress firm to get me the spec info on the Beautyrest contender pillow top and the east Hampton. Just curios-of course nobody had a clue, they called the Simmons rep, actually said they called several Simmons reps. I wanted to know the layer stack order, Ild rating and lbs over each layer…the difference in the 2-is contender is pillow top and east Hampton is plush with an extra 1000 micro coils instead of the foam layer like the contender. The so called infused gel memory foam is not at the top layer,like 3rd layer down, 28 ILD for both, didn’t know which layer, P11, I am assuming that is the coil type or model. The Simmons rep did not give them any other spec info, assuming he didn’t have a clue, I told them I could care less about the fancy names. That means nothing, I want to know the facts and specs. The Simmons guy, Serta guy and the sealy guy, actual reps for these companies didn’t have a clue. I added the LBS on the specs below. That they did know. From want I watched on Jeff’s beducation, the micro coils are pretty much worthless. I know the opinion is to stay away from these main brands. In your opinion does any of the main brands have any quality made beds based of the information/specs that’s recommended on this site or is it just the smaller manufactures for the most part that actually uses the more quality materials. Not saying all smaller manufactures use quality materials.
Thanks
Simmons Beautyrest World Class Contender 15 Pillow Top Mattress Specs• Individually Pocketed Coils
• 1.25" AirFeel Foam
• 1" AirCool® Foam
• 2" AirCool® Memory Foam…3.5lbs
• 1.5" TruTemp™Gel
• 1.5" Plush Comfort Foam
• 1000 Density Pocketed Coils
• Ventilated AirCool® BeautyEdge Foam Encasement
• Made in USA
• Warranty: 25 years
Simmons World Class East Hampton 15.5 Plush Pillow Top Specs
Comfort Type: Plush Pillow Top
Height: 15.5"
Comfort Layer: 2" AirCool® Memory Foam 4 lbs with Micro Gel, 1/2" TruTemp™ Gel, 1 1/2" MicroCoil, 1/2" Luxury Firm Comfort Foam
Covering: 1 1/4" AirFeel® Foam, 1" Plush Comfort Foam
Warranty: 25 years
P11 is a type of low ILD polyfoam they use for soft feels.
Unfortunately this is the “norm” for the major brands.
As you probably know … the specs you listed don’t include any meaningful information outside of the density for the memory foam (which they provide more often than the polyfoam density).
There are a few that use better quality materials but you would need to find them on a mattress by mattress basis (if you are up for the time, effort, and frustration it will take) and most of them would be in their specialty mattress lines. An example would be some of the Sealy Optimum latex mattresses that use latex comfort layers over polyfoam support cores (an example is here) but even the “better quality” mattresses made by the majors are also in higher budget ranges than other similar mattresses made by many smaller manufacturers.
Just for reference … you can see the foam quality in some of the Simmons mattresses and some of the Sealy mattresses listed on the Jordans site here and even the top of the line Beautyrest Black and beyond mattresses use some low quality foams (see here). Jordans is the only one I know in the industry that lists foam densities for their major brands (and as you can see they are not good).