Which mattress? (merged threads)

Tim_Deegan

poh75 wrote: »

Hi

I am hunting for a mattress at the moment and a bit stumped on what to get, i normally spend ages researching products before I buy and prefer to get quality = cash. However don't want to get ripped off.

Some bed retailers put between 400% and 500% mark up on beds, others don't. so just because it is expensive doesn't mean it is good quality, and vice versa.

poh75 wrote: »

I need a super king, budget was around £1000-£1500 MAX. I am 19 stone and partner is 10 stone. So we need a firm and very firm. Also other half does not want to feel me move around too much as I wake her up. I don't want to get too hot so although I like the comfort of the dreams Keats / Chaucer with memory foam topper it does worry me once I got it home.

Yo can get a very high spec, top of the range mattress for way under £1000.

Medium to firm is about the firmest for pocket springs. Otherwise the springs will be too firm to compress and contour to your body.

Your partner shouldn't feel you move around with a good quality pocket sprung mattress.

Some pocket sprung/memory foam mattresses are available with climate control fabrics like Climasmart or Outlast which will stop you getting too hot. However the most important thing to do to make sure you don't get too hot is to make sure the depth of the memory foam is between 2" and 2.5" (2" is better if you don't want to get hot). And also make sure the springs are full size steel springs rather than reflex foam encapsulated pocket springs.

poh75 wrote: »

I see online that its hard to find a mattress that costs more than £1k however in dreams or John Lewis you don't get much for less that £1200. What's the deal? Is the internet just better pricing or is the quality lower.

It is down to the huge mark ups that shops put on mattresses due to their high overheads. On line sellers have much lower overheads. How many times have you walked past a huge store like Dreams to see about 5 members of staff and no customers? That costs a fortune in overheads.

poh75 wrote: »

I went to dreams / john lewis / warren evans as only place I could find to try a new mattress. John lewis stuff felt very nice, but crazy prices at around £3k for what we liked.

Any mattress at £3k is a complete rip off.

poh75 wrote: »

I am pretty sure I need to go for Pocket Sprung, does 2000 springs over 1000 make a difference? Does having the memory topper mean its ok to have less springs. If you get with a major brand like Seale or Slientnight seems that they offer much cheaper mattress, its there anything like Dreams Keats thats from anther brand and not the price because dreams have all there shops etc

Don't go above 1800 pocket springs (in a king size mattress), which would be 2160 in a super king, but should still be called an 1800 pocket sprung mattress. If unsure just have a look at the king size version.

2000 over 1000 springs is just a gimmick, and means the possibility of unstability and failure in the springs.

Sealy, Silentnight, Rest Assured, Layezee, and the Pocket Sprung Bed Company are all part of the Silentnight group. You should do a search in these forums before you even consider them.

As a general rule you will get better value for money, and better quality from small independent manufacturers.

poh75 wrote: »

The frame is a Warren Evans slatted base (Kensington) if that makes a difference.

I presume they are sprung slats then? These are usually 2" to 2.5" apart. If you go for pocket sprung only, or non turn pocket sprung with memory foam then you would need to lay a sheet of hardboard or pegboard over the slats to spread the weight out, and stop the springs being damaged. However if you go for 2 sided pocket sprung with memory foam (these will also last longer), then the memory foam on the bottom of the mattress will spread the weight out.

cashsavingtwig

Tim_Deegan wrote: »

However if you go for 2 sided pocket sprung with memory foam (these will also last longer), then the memory foam on the bottom of the mattress will spread the weight out.

Q.E.D.
Just as I thought!

Tim_Deegan

cashsavingtwig wrote: »

Q.E.D.
Just as I thought!

Get a life........... there are loads of people who sell them

Also carefully editing what you quote can be a bit missleading. I was actually talking about all the different options.

kiwi07

Hi, Can you recommend me good and not very expensive ikea mattress?
Thanks

Haffiana

Well, I am going to add my personal experience to this enormous thread, because there doesn't seem to be much feedback in it, and I know that is what I was looking for when I started reading it.

We bought a Vi Spring bedstead mattress nearly 10 years ago when we changed our bed from a double to a kingsize. It was expensive, but has proved utterly worth it. The mattress is still in perfect condition, with no sags or bumps. It is blissfully comfortable, and I would say that it looks set to last another 10 years without any problems!

In the meantime I have bought two Relyon Bedstead 1200 pocket sprung mattresses for our kids as they became teenagers and started needing more support than the open coil mattresses that they used when they were little. These were also fairly expensive although I hunted around and got a good price online (I am a firm believer in buying things that last, rather than buy cheap, buy twice!) and these mattresses are both about 5 years old now. They have not fared quite as well as well as the Vi-Spring - one in particular is showing signs of a slight dip in the middle area. It isn't a problem, and is almost certainly because that particular son never, ever sits on the edge of his bed (it is one of those high up beds with a ladder, like the top of a bunk bed), but then neither does my husband, and our Vi-Spring is completely level. All the mattresses are turned fairly regularly.

Recently I revamped our spare room because my elderly father is going to be staying with us for a few months of each year. We use the room for storage as well as for the occasional visitors, and I had to do a fair bit of research to find a single bed that has a decent space underneath it to put things under, and ended up buying a bedstead from the Original Bedstead Company simply because it has a 17 inch under-bed height, unlike all the others on the market, and we can therefore store all our stuff under the bed.

Then came the headache of choosing a mattress... My father has slept in our bed a few times when he was house sitting for us, and had always commented on how comfortable our mattress is. He has arthritis and rheumatism, and so a good mattress is important. However Vi Springs are not cheap, which is why I have been reading this thread looking for recommendations. And noticing that there is, in all the nearly 200 pages, hardly any actual feedback/reviews/experiences from users.

I have been into bed shops, tried loads of mattresses, and have been amazed that some brand new mattresses are nowhere near as comfortable as our 10 year-old Vi Spring. And been frankly flabbergasted at some of the prices for rubbish, non-turn mattresses. I have listened with amusement to the nonsense spouted by sales staff in Dreams et al (has anyone else noticed that the sales people always claim to have whichever mattress you are looking at themselves, and 'it is marvelous'?). Tim Deegan is completely correct about some of the extraordinary sales tactics that are used! I did discover that I detest memory foam, and got hot and uncomfortable even in a 10 minute test in a bed shop. I got Dad to try one with a memory foam layer on top, and he didn't rate it, although it might have just been a not very comfortable mattress anyway, since I wasn't with him at the time.

The new bedstead is sprung slatted, with 2 1/2 inch gaps between the slats. I rang Vi-Spring, and they stated categorically that this gap would be fine with their Bedstead mattresses, and that there was no need to put pegboard under the mattress. I still hesitated to spend so much money, but in fact, the only other mattress that I thought was comparable was a John Lewis one that was not much less.

So I have gone with what I know is good, and bought another Vi-Spring. It arrived a couple of weeks ago, fortunately in time for a visit from my father. Vi-Spring rate their firmness according to the weight of the sleeper; if under 9 stone, then get a soft, if under 16 stone (I think it is) then get medium. Dad is about 11 stone so I got a medium. Interestingly the mattress comes with a guarantee; if, after using it for at least 30 days, you feel that the tension isn't the right one for you, they will replace it with a firmer or softer mattress completely free. It does say that this only applies to mattresses bought from a shop, not online, but since I got one from a department store in the Sales for less than any of the online stores, then it is covered! Actually I wonder if the reason Vi Spring are so expensive (it cost £500 for a single, eek eek EEK!) is because of this guarantee. There is no way they can resell a mattress that has been used for at least a month. However it looks as though the tension is just right, and it won't need changing.

But anyway, apologies for the long post, and please, please can people start adding some reviews and experiences of their mattresses, good or bad, especially if they have had them for a while, because I think it will make this thread more useful than it is at the moment.

Tim_Deegan

Haffiana wrote: »

We bought a Vi Spring bedstead mattress nearly 10 years ago when we changed our bed from a double to a kingsize. It was expensive, but has proved utterly worth it. The mattress is still in perfect condition, with no sags or bumps. It is blissfully comfortable, and I would say that it looks set to last another 10 years without any problems!

Vi Spring are good quality, and any good quality mattress that is looked after should give a minimum of 10 years good service.

Haffiana wrote: »

In the meantime I have bought two Relyon Bedstead 1200 pocket sprung mattresses for our kids as they became teenagers and started needing more support than the open coil mattresses that they used when they were little. These were also fairly expensive although I hunted around and got a good price online (I am a firm believer in buying things that last, rather than buy cheap, buy twice!) and these mattresses are both about 5 years old now. They have not fared quite as well as well as the Vi-Spring - one in particular is showing signs of a slight dip in the middle area. It isn't a problem, and is almost certainly because that particular son never, ever sits on the edge of his bed (it is one of those high up beds with a ladder, like the top of a bunk bed), but then neither does my husband, and our Vi-Spring is completely level. All the mattresses are turned fairly regularly.

Any signs of a dip in a mattress are signs of spring failure. So this mattress may need replacing.

Relyon also used to be very good quality, but it appears that they have also suffered from now being owned by a big multinational company.

Haffiana wrote: »

I have been into bed shops, tried loads of mattresses, and have been amazed that some brand new mattresses are nowhere near as comfortable as our 10 year-old Vi Spring. And been frankly flabbergasted at some of the prices for rubbish, non-turn mattresses. I have listened with amusement to the nonsense spouted by sales staff in Dreams et al (has anyone else noticed that the sales people always claim to have whichever mattress you are looking at themselves, and 'it is marvelous'?). Tim Deegan is completely correct about some of the extraordinary sales tactics that are used! I did discover that I detest memory foam, and got hot and uncomfortable even in a 10 minute test in a bed shop. I got Dad to try one with a memory foam layer on top, and he didn't rate it, although it might have just been a not very comfortable mattress anyway, since I wasn't with him at the time.

As you say, many of the mattresses aren't as comfortable, or as good quality as your 10 year old Vi Spring. This is because Vi Spring still hand make their mattresses, rather than mass producing them by robot. This is one of the main reasons why I recommend smaller independent manufacturers, because they also hand make them.

Haffiana wrote: »

The new bedstead is sprung slatted, with 2 1/2 inch gaps between the slats. I rang Vi-Spring, and they stated categorically that this gap would be fine with their Bedstead mattresses, and that there was no need to put pegboard under the mattress. I still hesitated to spend so much money, but in fact, the only other mattress that I thought was comparable was a John Lewis one that was not much less.

Unless the mattress is non turn with a hard base, then it will not last as long with gaps of 2.5". They tell people that they can be used, and they can, but simply won't last as long.

Haffiana wrote: »

So I have gone with what I know is good, and bought another Vi-Spring. It arrived a couple of weeks ago, fortunately in time for a visit from my father. Vi-Spring rate their firmness according to the weight of the sleeper; if under 9 stone, then get a soft, if under 16 stone (I think it is) then get medium. Dad is about 11 stone so I got a medium. Interestingly the mattress comes with a guarantee; if, after using it for at least 30 days, you feel that the tension isn't the right one for you, they will replace it with a firmer or softer mattress completely free. It does say that this only applies to mattresses bought from a shop, not online, but since I got one from a department store in the Sales for less than any of the online stores, then it is covered! Actually I wonder if the reason Vi Spring are so expensive (it cost £500 for a single, eek eek EEK!) is because of this guarantee. There is no way they can resell a mattress that has been used for at least a month. However it looks as though the tension is just right, and it won't need changing.

There are other companies who give satisfaction guarantees, but don't charge sky high prices.

Haffiana wrote: »

But anyway, apologies for the long post, and please, please can people start adding some reviews and experiences of their mattresses, good or bad, especially if they have had them for a while, because I think it will make this thread more useful than it is at the moment.

I agree that more people should leave reviews. The trouble is that people come on here before buying a mattress, and don't often return after buying one.

Torkijo

cashsavingtwig wrote: »

Ouch. So, if anyone posts an opinion on here that's different from yours, you bully them until they go?

I know you're not reading what I write properly, but I'll tell you one last time; I was merely making an observation about the apparent impartiality of this particular thread. I'm not being a 'troll', and I am not meaning to insult you. Your tone has become quite unpleasant. Good luck with your mattresses Tim.

I tend to agree with most of your summary, however, despite all that most of Tim's advice reads well and holds up when doing further research. (Although i think we have had an over reaction on this).

The point of me mentioning all this is your original point - reccommendations.

After reading through the 171 pages (as it was), visiting 7 different bed shops and doing a lot of online research we did indeed end up with the Madris Matress - we bought an Outlast mattress protector from John Lewis and I have to say i have slept extremely well on it over the last fortnight.

I didnt go with Tim's shop - but that was a price issue not a personality one as unfortunately i had a ver fixed budget.

I would also recomment the open srung la Romantica Oriel as a Kids Single Mattress - its better quality than the John Lewis ones we have on the Spair bed.

kiwi07

Do you know good one from ikea?

Tim_Deegan

oki1875 wrote: »

Do you know good one from ikea?

Do a search in the MSE forums for Ikea mattresses, there are very mixed reviews. If I give my opinion I'll just get slated.

alisont

I need to buy a new mattress for both my bed (metal frame one) and for my parents one but think I need to find time to read through the thread first before asking questions!

My mattress is looking rather dented as I do sit on it to watch tv in my room which I know is bad but not got much space for a chair. Keep turning it but am not sleeping well and get shoulder/back ache, did not have that on holiday last week with a nice well sprung comfy mattress!

Once Ive decluttered my room prior to getting it decorated/new carpet next month mattress buying is next on the list, Il have a read through then might be asking a few questions Tim:D