My only question about his test is this. Would the VOC’s have registered lower if the mattress was out of the plastic bag? Obviously the bag was emitting VOC’s too so, in all fairness, the mattress should have been removed from the bag, folded over into threes, and then tested again, right? Regardless, the VOC count is very high for T&N and this is one of the reasons that this mattress has never appealed to me.
And Nest Bedding comes in pretty high as well.
And, in all fairness, Ian does another test to determine how long these mattesses offgass before an acceptable level is found.
I sent Ian the Love Bed because I wanted to see how it would test out. What I didn’t realize is that he tested the sealed air in the bag, not the mattress. He told me afterwards that the mattress, just a few hours later, had very little and a little longer after that same as the ambient air. Testing the air sealed in the bag will give you a very skewed reading because the plastic bag itself will off-gas.
Hi mdgail1,
I think that the tests in the youtube videos you linked are somewhat misleading and non scientific because there are so many variables involved that could affect the results of the tests or that could affect how the results are “interpreted” in a way that was meaningful in “real life” or to make comparisons between mattresses.
They don’t take into account how long the mattresses were inside the sealed plastic (which would affect the accumulation of any VOC’s when they were first opened) and they don’t indicate the specific VOC’s that are being measured (some VOC’s are more harmful than others and have different threshold values for short term exposure that would be more or less safe).
At least he does indicate that the question he is trying to answer is “how long should a mattress be aired out” or “should you open a compressed mattress outside” rather than “is this mattress safe?” so the results of this type of “home based” testing may be useful for those who were concerned with the initial VOC level of a mattress when it was first opened to encourage them to let it air it out for a few hours or a day or two before bringing it inside or sleeping on it. At worst though it could encourage people to take the results more seriously than they should about the longer term “safety” of a mattress or how two mattresses compare.
I think that the comments at the end of one of the videos that say …
and
were probably fair and represent the most reasonable conclusion of the videos and would probably be of help for those people that are more sensitive or that are more concerned with accumulated VOC’s when a mattress is first opened. Incidentally the CertiPUR testing threshold for “total VOC’s” is 500 micrograms / cubic meter although the limits for some of the individual VOC’s that they test for are much lower than this. It was also interesting that the mattresses he tested were “safe” by his standards once they had aired out for a while.
ADMIN NOTE: Removed 404 page link | Archived Footprint: certipur.us/pages/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/CertiPUR-US_TechnicalGuidelines_12.10.141.pdf
Phoenix
LIke I said, it wasn’t exactly fair because all the mattresses were in plastic as opposed to being out in the open. If I were conducting this type of test it would have been in a controlled environment where the voc’s were first measured inside the room and then another test about ten minutes after the mattress had fully expanded.
Also, why did he use the outdoor air quality as a gauge when we all know it would measure lower? Why didn’t he test the indoor air first?
Anyway, I’m enjoying the discussion.