Yet another mattress quest

Discussions General Mattresses Questions
1

Hi to all and Pheonix! I don’t know how you get to be answering all the posts here, you must be a robot! :lol:

So, I had a mattress quest in the past year and read a whole lot of info on these forums.
I ended up buying my main king mattress at SleepEZ and I really enjoy it so far, it has been about 3 months.

I am now looking for a twin size for my almost 4yr old dude.
I am in Montreal.

The thing is here, prices are quite high… hard to find something under 900$ for a 100% Latex.

I first thought I’d go with SleepEZ again… but you know, I wanted to give local a chance and since I’m on vacation this week I took some time to shop around. You gotta know that I’m a big sucker when it comes to getting the best price without neglecting quality. I do believe that you get what you pay for but personal experience has shown me that price just CAN be low AND pay less than msrp!

Ok, so I went to see a small shop yesterday that had a latex twin for 380$! Obviously it was a fake, inside the color of the foam was alot more yellowish kinda like memoryfoam but had holes in it! I couldn’t believe it. Have you heard of anything like that? I guess some manufacturers now will just try to sell foam and say it’s latex and have holes in em… i left that place in a hurry…

Today I had one liquidation place calling me back saying the received a twin latex mattress and that I could come and take a look at it. Fine! When I get there the mattress has no zipper, so the cover was all stitched like regular mattress and with labels all over written TempurPedic! (Only when I came back home I realized that Tempur only makes Foam mattresses, correct me…)

So it looks fine, for what I can actually see. I was begging the guy for more info but he assured me he didnt have any and that the mattress core was made by some Ultra manufacturer here in Quebec. I only found Les Fab Ultra Canada Ltd, a company of Vitafoam.ca. But I wonder why they would have used a TempurPedic cover… I kept bugging the guy, he wants to sell it 500$, by the way this place is http://matelas.xt1.ca/ or also known as club matelas. They sell returns or defects I guess. I don’t really mind if the mattress is super clean.

Back to the story the mattress is looking great but shows like if slats had been underneath it. Could have been a demo… Also the holes were bigger than what I’m used to see. Anyways the guy saw I was hesitant and offered to cut a part of the thread and open it a bit so i can see the inside!! :ohmy: I thought that was fun! Let’s take a look inside!

It was a pretty beige-creamy typical latex color. But, I noticed that the bottom part had no holes. The salesman said it’s because it was designed for an electric bed. Also it appeared that the cover was lightly glued to the mattress and I could detach a small portion to notice something blue covering the latex, like some glue maybe, does that make sense?

Anyways, I know this is edgy but it does look alright. My next step is to try to find the manufacturer. Does a company in Quebec with Ultra in it’s name tell you anything?

What about the blue stuff or glue, I expect it to be normal but maybe someone can confirm.

I looked at FBM but was pretty much discouraged reading up on them.
I saw good deals also in the US with sleeponlatex for 300$ Dunlop core, I would still need a cover.
Foamorder has a clearance block for Twin Firm for 378$, still need a cover, they sell some.
Matress247 on ebay has one for 395 with cover but no medium/firm available… than maybe a for small kidd medium/soft would be fine…

If I could just find a plain core somewhere local and a twin cover i’d be set. I just don’t want to pay over 500$ on this.

What are you thoughts? Beside that I’m cheap! :lol:

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Hi Flow,

Sometimes I feel like one … but it also helps that I have a list of reference posts that I use to answer many questions that have been asked before which also allows me to reply to many more questions than would otherwise be possible … but answering forum posts is still the time equivalent of much more than a full time job on most days. It’s also something that I enjoy which helps a lot as well :slight_smile:

You may have seen this already but post #2 here includes links to most of the better forum posts and topics about mattresses and children and includes links to many good options as well.

Post #21 here also includes a list of the better online options I’m aware of that ship across Canada that would also be worth considering.

There are also many good options or possibilities in the Montreal area that are listed in post #276 here.

Yes … different types of foam including polyfoam and memory foam can both be “punched” with holes to aid in ventilation. I have also encountered many stores or salespeople that have no idea about the differences between different types of foam and use memory foam and latex interchangeably. Of course memory foam has a much slower response than latex and is also temperature sensitive as well (to differing degrees) so telling the difference between slow and fast response materials isn’t that difficult and once you’ve seen or felt latex it’s difficult to mistake it for something else … even though there are many different types of latex.

Yes … Tempurpedic makes a wide range of memory foam mattresses of different types (which would all include different types and layers of memory foam in the upper layers and polyfoam in the deeper layers) but they don’t make any latex mattresses.

I would be very cautious with used mattresses or with mattresses that have been returned because of defects (whether they call them “scratch and dent”, overstock, or any other name) because you would have no warranty and you would have little recourse if you have any issues with the mattress. It’s not uncommon at all that you would be buying someone else’s problems. There is more about buying a used mattress in post #2 here and more about “liquidation outlets” in post #8 here. Regardless of where I was buying a mattress I would also make sure you know the type and quality of all the layers so that you know that there are no “weak links” or materials you aren’t comfortable with in the mattress and so you can make more meaningful comparisons with other mattresses. Sometimes “cheap” can be the most costly choice of all if you don’t know what you are really buying.

The pincores in a latex mold don’t go all the way through the latex so if a full latex core is cut in the middle then the holes may not go all the way through. There are also some continuous pour versions of latex that don’t have holes at all or where the holes are “punched” after it’s poured as an option. I don’t know what the blue material may be (a picture may help) but it could be some type of gel material.

Not off the top of my head no

I personally wouldn’t deal with FBM either. You can read about the reasons why in this post and this post and this topic (about their polyfoam and sources) and this post (presumably from a past employee).

Hopefully some of the comments in this reply will be helpful :slight_smile:

Phoenix

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Hey thanks for answering.

I’m still debating, I read the posts you mentionned. I’m a risk type of guy and usually have good experience with that but I think I have a few points to clear up before I actually purchase the mattress.

One thing I didn’t mention is one side of the mattress has a small chunk missing. I thought that might be the reason why it ended up there… but then it just bugs me that the cover is TempurPedic… The only reason I think of is maybe whoever took care of this “leftover” core just cover it in any available cover they had in their shop. But then again the fact that’s it’s not a zipper cover makes you wonder.
Is there anything they don’t want me to see?

The blue stuff I saw inside I initially thought it was some glue, I just did all the wicked googling i thought of and maybe it could be some adhesive for latex mattress that lets air in but not water? It looks sprayed on it. What does happen if a latex core gets water? Does it dry normally? The flaps from the cover on the side was glued cause I had to sort of peel it off to get to see the mattress but there was no blue stuff there…

And bigger holes means a softer core?

I’ll have to call the guy back and get final answers on the product. How it ended up in a Tempur cover. etc.

What if there is really no sticker inside? Have you ever heard or seen those being removed?

As for the mattress being most likely previously owned, if there are no stains or anything visually present, what could be bad if it’s latex? I don’t feel like a used latex core could be non hygienic or anything in that sense, am I wrong to think this?

Thanks again!

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Hi Flow,

[quote]One thing I didn’t mention is one side of the mattress has a small chunk missing. I thought that might be the reason why it ended up there… but then it just bugs me that the cover is TempurPedic… The only reason I think of is maybe whoever took care of this “leftover” core just cover it in any available cover they had in their shop. But then again the fact that’s it’s not a zipper cover makes you wonder.
Is there anything they don’t want me to see?[/quote]

I can’t see the mattress so I really can’t say anything with any certainty but it’s quite possible that the mattress has just been rebuilt from pieces of old mattresses that the rebuilder managed to find or acquire wherever and however they could. If the cover is Tempurpedic and the insides aren’t then I would immediately be suspicious. While I’m not suggesting this is the case here … there are some rebuilders that go as far as using mattress discards that they find on the street or in trash and then take them apart and use some of the pieces to build new mattresses. Others just use new covers to cover old mattresses that haven’t been sterilized and that most people would shudder if they really new what was inside them. Almost anything you can imagine is possible in the seedier side of the industry.

Water doesn’t have a negative affect on latex. New latex cores are washed multiple times to remove the surface proteins and other substances that are left over from the manufacturing process and they are fine. Latex that is oxidized or aged turns yellow or brown and gets crusty and crumbly. I don’t think the “blue stuff” is glue.

The size and spacing of the pincores in latex is one of the factors that can affect the firmness of latex and if all else is equal and the latex is otherwise the same then larger pincores would be softer than smaller ones.

If you mean the stickers that are on some latex cores then these are attached to the full core and they will often be missing depending on which part of the original core the latex was cut from. It’s also possible that they have been removed.

That depends entirely on your own sense of what you are comfortable sleeping on. An ultraviolet light may be more likely to show up residual body fluids and other “stuff” that may cause you to think twice about buying a used mattress at all (assuming that’s what it is) but some people are just more comfortable with those types of choices than others and that’s a question that each person would need to answer for themselves.

Phoenix