How to Buy a Bed

Thanks for sharing this information. This is really nice. Everyone needs to thing about it that which one is the best mattress to buy.

Kunal of IN 3:31AM March 05, 2013

Thank you for the article it really helped us. My husband and I researched online and then checked out specific mattresses. We did not bring our wallets with us:) We just tried them out and narrowed down what we wanted. But actually we found a great mattress store in NYC that ships nation wide that offered a 100 day comfort guarantee. They were the most competitive and were well reviewed we ended up buying from them and saving on the mattress and taxes. Most of the stores we went to the people there really were so confusing but the customer service at Jen's Beds was so nice, so nice that we are posting here. Thanks Karen and Craig for all of your help. You can find them online at http://www.JensBeds.com . You will not be dissapointed

Lori Sleep of TX 6:45PM August 15, 2012

I really appreciate that someone took the time to try and write this article. There is so much information, and misinformation to filter through, it is almost impossible to discern what is true, and what is not. Having grown up in a mattress store, and now designing mattresses for a living, I feel bad when people get lured into buying something that won't last, or is overpriced. That all being said, you have fallen into the same traps that many consumers at large have, and ended up writing an article that simply propagates much of that same misinformation.

First, you are dead on with your first point; you will be unhappy if you don't base your decision on comfort. However, the way the second point is presented creates an perception foam is truly one category, but fails to differentiate between plastic foams, and rubber foams. You also incorrectly state that the portion of air beds to fail is the air bladder. The foam is always the part of the bed that gets sags. Coils, Air Bladders, Water Bladders, and Botanical Latex, are almost never the part of a bed that fails (excluding punctures). You have also stated that getting a natural/organic bed is more expensive than a "conventional mattress." That is mostly wrong. It all depends on what store you are looking in, or what they are trying to sell you.

Another misleading element in the mattress industry is warranties. The last thing you should use as a guide when purchasing a mattress is the warranty. Mattress warranties are useless. It generally takes a sag of 1 1/2 inches or more to constitute a warrantable depression; more than half an inch of sag is too much for most people. Continuity of comfort is the key. Every bed will feel great when you take it home, the question is how will it feel 6 months down the road, or 6 years down the road?

The most important thing a customer should know when they are you shopping for a mattress, is how the materials in their bed will wear. Plastic foams (poly foam, memory foam, soy foam) will compress at a rate of 10-25% over a five year span, with the bulk of that coming in the first 6 months. Rubber foams will vary greatly in wear depending on the percentage of botanical latex in the foam. The more botanical rubber, the more durable (Less than 1/8 of an inch of compression over 30 years with Botanical Dunlop Latex). A heat tempered coil takes 2 million compressions to deform (I have only seen one defective coil system in over 30 years). Batting whether wool, cotton, horse hair, polyester fiber, or even silk will compress to half or less then its original loft. One sided mattresses have 1/3 the comfort life of flippable beds. Consumer reports had to revise the life expectancy down to 5 years when the industry moved to "No Flip" mattresses.

With this information, you can look at the spec sheet of any mattress, and know how it will wear. Every retailer has a sheet that says what is in every mattress they sell. Make them show it to you.

Blake G. of WA 12:38PM September 17, 2011