Sleep to Live Beds

Edelman

Tim_Deegan wrote: »

It appears to be ok to continue the discussion again now without a trouble maker trying to ruin it. :j:j:j

Why do people have to be so rude. It's so easy to be like that when you don't have to face them.

Those sort are called bullies.
Easiest way to ignore, is to leave.
Specially when no actual advice is coming through here, just slandering what a salesman has been like, and no stating what a salesman SHOULD do, nor stating in a forum about a bed, what sort of bed would be good, when the person slandering, is a bed salesman.

Very odd really. Oh well.

Some forums are worth being in. Some are not. This one does appear to be fairly pointless really. And laughable at times.

Tim_Deegan

Edelman wrote: »

Why do people have to be so rude. It's so easy to be like that when you don't have to face them.

Those sort are called bullies.
Easiest way to ignore, is to leave.
Specially when no actual advice is coming through here, just slandering what a salesman has been like, and no stating what a salesman SHOULD do, nor stating in a forum about a bed, what sort of bed would be good, when the person slandering, is a bed salesman.

Very odd really. Oh well.

Some forums are worth being in. Some are not. This one does appear to be fairly pointless really. And laughable at times.

Well leave then, as it's you who was rude in your first post.

Edelman

Tim_Deegan wrote: »

Well leave then, as it's you who was rude in your first post.

So easy to say that when you are not facing them Tim.

Stick to the point of this thread which I did.
Do you recommend Sleep to Live beds to those on this thread - yes or no?
Do you recommend any others to those on this thread - yes or no?

Forget about the salesman that you feel are lying, or being pushy. Some are, some arent. The lady I saw this afternoon certainly was not pushy in the slightest. Just informative and decent.

If you are unable to really give yes or no answers here, and can only really slate salesman, or even may go so far as saying the lady today did a bad job through not having me walk out the door with a bed - then I doubt ANYTHING will ever be good enough for some people.

Thanks to those who did give a very good review on these beds. I personally love the Series 900. Having tried many other beds, it's amazing. I cannot match it even with a £3,500 mattress I tried for a laugh today.

Tim_Deegan

Edelman wrote: »

So easy to say that when you are not facing them Tim.

Stick to the point of this thread which I did.
Do you recommend Sleep to Live beds to those on this thread - yes or no?
Do you recommend any others to those on this thread - yes or no?

Forget about the salesman that you feel are lying, or being pushy. Some are, some arent. The lady I saw this afternoon certainly was not pushy in the slightest. Just informative and decent.

If you are unable to really give yes or no answers here, and can only really slate salesman, or even may go so far as saying the lady today did a bad job through not having me walk out the door with a bed - then I doubt ANYTHING will ever be good enough for some people.

Thanks to those who did give a very good review on these beds. I personally love the Series 900. Having tried many other beds, it's amazing. I cannot match it even with a £3,500 mattress I tried for a laugh today.

Fact....Sleep to Live beds are over priced.
Fact....Sleep to Live beds are a bad design by the fact that they are non turn, so won't last as long.
Fact....the sales woman didn't advise you about these points because she wanted a sale.

Edelman

Tim_Deegan wrote: »

Fact....Sleep to Live beds are over priced.
Fact....Sleep to Live beds are a bad design by the fact that they are non turn, so won't last as long.
Fact....the sales woman didn't advise you about these points because she wanted a sale.

Pricewise I have no idea. But they are better than ANY other bed I have tried.
I know of no pocket spring beds that have a pillow or memory foam topping that you *can* turn. Sleep to Live, and a lot of other beds I have tried, have a 5-10 year guarantee though. That said, not sure what that guarantee covers.
She shop I saw today didn't sell Sleep to Live. But she knew all about the beds they did sell. She was very good and not pushy.

What brand do you personally recommend as a soft/medium or medium mattress?

Tim_Deegan

Edelman wrote: »

Pricewise I have no idea. But they are better than ANY other bed I have tried.

They may feel better for 10 mins in the shop when they are brand new, but that doesn't mean that they will still feel as comfortable when you have slept on it, or in 6 months time.

To say that they are better implies that you know about the construction of mattresses. If you did then you would know that non turn is a poor design for mattresses.

Edelman wrote: »

I know of no pocket spring beds that have a pillow or memory foam topping that you *can* turn. Sleep to Live, and a lot of other beds I have tried, have a 5-10 year guarantee though. That said, not sure what that guarantee covers.

Pillow top mattresses are the worst gimmick in the bed industry. This is because most pillow tops contain loose fillings that can move about, and in time can leave you sleeping in a hollow.

There are two sided pocket sprung and memory foam mattresses on the market.

As for the gimmicks used to try and baffle people with science:

• Silent Partner® Construction........I presume this is the fact that they use two single spring systems so that partners can't feel each other move. Well you shouldn't be able to feel your partner move with a pocket sprung mattress anyway. The down side is that there is often a ridge between the two spring units.
• Ultimate Remembrance Inlay.........so that would be memory foam then I presume.
• Ultimate Response Inlay........probably reflex foam. In fact from the diagram it looks like the mattress could contain the smaller and less supportive reflex foam encapsulated pocket springs.
• Performance Fabric.........that would be a stretch knitted fabric then.
• Vertical Zoning..........so that's the two different tensions of spring units then.
• Superior Sprung Divan........a sprung divan base then. Probably pocket sprung which serves no advantage over open coil springs in a base.

I would find out if they use one large spring unit if you want the same springs on both sides, or if they still use two. If they do use two then you could still get a ridge.

As for the guarantee, they don't give any details on the site. I suspect that it only has a full guarantee for 12 months, then after that it is on a sliding scale. Worth finding out.

Edelman wrote: »

She shop I saw today didn't sell Sleep to Live. But she knew all about the beds they did sell. She was very good and not pushy.

They may have known all about the beds they sell, but how would you know that they did unless you had an in deth knowledge of beds?

Edelman wrote: »

What brand do you personally recommend as a soft/medium or medium mattress?

I don't recommend anything through MSE as that would be advertising.

Edelman

6 months time: You could say that about any bed on the planet.
I said they are better, purely in what I, as a customer look for: comfort and support. Of every bed I have tried in the past week, the StL bed was the best in those terms. Absolute comfort. Pricewise - shocking! But the best things in life tend to be a little more expensive anyway.
My ex-girlfriend's bed was pillow top - cannot remember what spring type. It was very old. But I regularly overslept on it as it was so very comfortable. It was non-turnable, like I would say every decently priced, decent quality bed I saw today was. Even a £3,500 bed was non-turn.
I do see what you mean about the reasons behind turning. My current bed is a turn one, but nowhere near as comfortable as the ones I have tried lately.
If it is made well, particular in the 'top' construction, it shouldn't move about anyway.
I am not interested in having two different levels of support on the bed. Just one overall 'setting' is fine with me.
Your comment about guarantees makes me think, with respect, that you feel any guarantee of any bed in the world - if it is 10 years, then a few months after those 10 years, it will totally fall apart?
From my reading, you should replace a bed after 10 years anyway.

They may have known all about the beds they sell, but how would you know that they did unless you had an in deth knowledge of beds?

I am sorry but I really don't understand what you mean. Are you saying, that me as a customer who is not trained in beds, would not have a clue if the person who was knowledgeable about beds, was REALLY knowledgeable or not?
Sorry but that could be said of anyone - even you. Like anyone from whom you take advice - you trust in their advice, and generally take from it what you can. If you don't feel you can trust them through their personality or attitude, you tend to walk away. Or at least I do!

Are we not allowed to advertise on here? People here seem to be saying how to StL beds are, and that is advertising. I found a Myers and a Sealy bed today, both excellent, but StL were more comfortable on first use. And that is exactly how every single buyer in the world, as far as I know, judges a bed when they buy it:

1) recommendations
2) ultimately....initial comfort in the store. If it isn't comfy and support, I don't buy it.

StL has so far, been the best in that respect.

Edelman

redkipper wrote: »

Okay then, so here's ANOTHER first time post (long time lurker) from someone who had a good experience with the retailer mentioned in this thread and would like to share it to enrich the forum, answering the question posed. You see unlike some previous responders I still have the wish to praise good service and / or product when we see it so others may come to an informed decision when they ask for advice.

Honestly, I do despair when some people's own petty little prejudices and banal attempts at humour get in the way of people seeking advice and details of good or bad experience. I mean what is a forum like this for if it is not to share experience; good and bad? Come on then, how many of you have bought a bed and had a genuinely bad experience with either this mattress or this retailer? Hmmm? Any of you? Well, if not, perhaps you should !!!!!! then or at least share your story rather than just sarcasm and derision – some of us actually do want to hear what others have said, rather than the sarcastic and unhelpful comments of those with more opinion than intelligence or good manners.

Incidentally, I would like to extend my thanks to those who did share an honest experience here. I read this thread before going to look at beds so as to understand what to expect from this retailer, and those with positive contribution, both good and bad, helped - my thanks go to you.

Anyway, rant over, and if you were looking for another opinion from someone who has used Bensons for beds, please read on....

My girlfriend and I have been out looking for a bed frame and a mattress. We have been to some independents as well as Dreams, Bensons, John Lewis and IKEA. I’ll start with Benson’s here, as that, and the ‘Sleep to Live’ range, were the subject of the original post. My reviews of the other retailers we tied are more perfunctory but then I’d like to keep it factual, objective and to the point.

We used the Benson’s for Beds in Shrewsbury and I have to say that we had an entirely positive experience. Firstly, the shop shuts at 6 during the week, but the gent in the store was kind enough to keep the store open for us until gone 6.45 as I had to travel from the other side of Coventry to get there and due to the glorious six lane car park that is the M6, I was later than the 5pm I had been aiming for. He was patient, knowledgeable, not in the slightest bit pushy and did not try to sell us any particular mattress or bed frame, rather he gave the best advice that anyone could give (granted this isn’t rocket science....); ‘This is an expensive purchase that should last a long time, so make sure that you are completely happy with whatever you buy and take your time.’ He explained the merits of each mattress in a factual way, rather than his own opinion, and didn’t mention the ‘Sleep to Live’ range until I asked. He was then keen to point out that if this was not the most comfortable mattress in the shop for you, then you shouldn’t consider buying it; the greatest advantage that you had for the extra money was that you could choose your desired support individually and so didn’t have to have a bed that was a compromise in comfort between you and your sleep partner. He added that as we were both looking for the same firmness, then the extra money wasn’t really worth it unless the comfort factor was so great that we just had to have it.

In the end, and after one and a half hours going from one mattress to another, we made our choice. All I am going to say about what we chose was the most comfortable mattress for us, at a price we could afford, and perhaps rather than looking directly at a brand, perhaps this is what you should be looking at. I would say that it wasn’t a ‘Sleep to Live’ though; I didn’t find it comfy at all! J

The last part of my positive experience was that rather than take the order there and then, which we would have been happy to place, he said we should really come back, or call up, tomorrow as in addition to the 50% off sale (he did explain that this was pretty much perpetual and not a real indication of the true cost of the mattress or bed frame) there would be a further 20% off everything we had been looking at.

In terms of the other retailers we tried, I wasn't so impressed.

I already have an IKEA bed and think their range is now ugly, okay - just not to my taste at all. I also didn't think that my current mattress was particularly good and has sagged badly after just 5 years service. Yes it is guaranteed, but I’d rather have had the thing right in the first place and not have to lug a Super King Size mattress back to a shop to have it pulled apart and questioned by a load of strange people, somehow this just feels like an invasion of privacy. And what does one do whilst this is happening? Sleep on the floor? No thanks!

John Lewis, Birmingham? If you thought that Benson's was expensive do go here, you'll have your eyes opened! Great choice and service for those with so much money they don't have to do the shopping around thing... (I wish!!)

Dreams, Sheldon, Birmingham. Not terribly helpful, very pushy and everything was a real effort; Very much the ‘Well if you buy it today....’ kind of sales and I really do resent that kind of thing and left very quickly. I guess each branch an salesperson have a different ethos on customer srvice - I could have just been unlucky here.

As for the independents, well they’re good if they have what you want. The ones I visited were great, mostly really nice people –and some were cheaper that the stuff we bought in the end, but your choice here is normally limited and you will have to have what they can get (rather obviously!). We didn’t find anything in the few shops we tried that was to our taste or comfort requirements – and I am not a patient shopper who like endlessly trawling the backstreets of Birmingham (for so many reasons!!)!!!

As for the internet (‘It’s the future, you know!!’) I really wasn’t too happy buying something I had never tried out. Granted you can go see something in a shop and then search online to try and get a better price – great idea! But personally I wouldn’t be happy chancing that I got the correct mattress / bed frame and I would rather deal with a retailer that I can go in and ‘speak to’ directly if there is a problem – especially over a purchase of this value. Distance Selling Regulations are all well and good but the inconvenience that you can suffer whilst something is sorted out doesn’t make up for the savings you can make, in my opinion.

Now those were my experiences, and that’s how they happened and I would say that I work for a large electronics company and have no affiliation to Benson’s or any other bed manufacturer, before there are any more cheap shots.

Yup, I fully expect to be flamed now, that’ll be the mentality of those that can’t help themselves, but hey, I hope that helped anyone who was genuinely interested.

Hi there. I am sure you will be flamed by some, but not by me.
Like you, I appreciate good salespeople. If someone is good, some people here seem to take the synical view that good people means they just want to sell sell sell.

Anyway, unlike you, I found the Series 900 to be astonishingly supportive, like no other bed I have tried. The chap at Bensons was very helpful. Had all the time in the world, and explained it all too me. True - some of the special bed thing might have been a gimick - BUT - whatever it resulted in, what correct. The 900 out of all the others, was the most comfortable.

I have since laid on about 15 beds, and none match it.

If you would not mind, I would appreciate knowing which bed you DID buy in the end, since it wasn't Sleep to Live. Because if I can find something equally comfortable and supportive, that isn't £1,700, I'll certainly take a look.

Edelman

littlechook wrote: »

We recently bought a Sleep to Live 500 series mattress from Bensons as the shop sample was very comfortable. We were measured as needing the blue/green option although my husband said he would prefer to have the green/green because we sometimes like to swap sides. Bensons persuaded us to initially opt for the one we were diagnosed for and if we didn't like it we would be able to change it within 40 days - part of the guarantee apparently.

The mattress arrived... we've now had it for 3 weeks and it is nothing like the the one we tried in the shop - it's uncomfortable and lumpy. Furthermore, we can feel a definite 'ridge' where the two halves meet which actually feels like it's rolling you onto the softer (green) side.

We have been back into Bensons and re-tried the beds in their centre and they are quite simply not the same - the one in the shop is very comfortable.
We spoke to Bensons about the distinct difference between the mattress we tried and based our purchase on to the one we now have. They reckon that the demo mattress in the shop will obviously be different because so many people are trying it out - bearing this in mind how on earth are you meant to be able to make an objective purchasing decision if this is the case?

We also told Bensons that we are not happy with the mattress and we want to change it for the all green option... but no, we have to wait until the 40 days is up before we can do this because apparently much can change in this time - yes, we will have gained another 20 nights will little sleep!

It seems to me that Bensons either haven't got a clue or they are just not interested in their customers. As for the mattress, we regret this very expensive and uncomfortable purchase and would suggest that there are better mattresses out there for the money!

Was your bed lump in your own zone then? Did Bensons ever find out what the lump was?

I find it very bad that they insist you use it for 40 days before taking it back. They are basically saying to you: customer - having 30+ more sleepless nights with a lumpy bed, just to be sure.

Does make one think again about them, but, the same can be said of many products.
A few work out bad, but most work out brilliant.
I read reviews of a TV once, about about 98% were excellent, while 2% were really poor.

Anyway, did you ever get satisfaction from this? I am looking at the 900 series.

Tim_Deegan

You reall need to read my replys rather than just picking out little bits.

Edelman wrote: »

6 months time: You could say that about any bed on the planet.

Yes you could, but with many other brands you wouldn't have paid way over the top for something that could be a dissapointment in 6 months time.

Edelman wrote: »

I said they are better, purely in what I, as a customer look for: comfort and support. Of every bed I have tried in the past week, the StL bed was the best in those terms.

So initial comfort was good, but how do you know support was good??? Just because it feels good, doesn't mean it is.
You haven't slept on the mattress yet. I hear from people all the time who try a bed in a shop, but when they actually sleep on it they realise they have made a terrible mistake.

Edelman wrote: »

Pricewise - shocking! But the best things in life tend to be a little more expensive anyway.

That's complete rubbish.......yes quality may cost more, but more often than not you are paying for a name when you pay a lot of money.

Edelman wrote: »

My ex-girlfriend's bed was pillow top - cannot remember what spring type. It was very old. But I regularly overslept on it as it was so very comfortable. It was non-turnable, like I would say every decently priced, decent quality bed I saw today was.

What type of fillings did the pillow top have?

Edelman wrote: »

Even a £3,500 bed was non-turn.

Well that does show how people can be conned doesn't it. No mattress is worth £3500, and paying a high price doesn't guarantee comfort, support or quality.

Edelman wrote: »

I do see what you mean about the reasons behind turning. My current bed is a turn one, but nowhere near as comfortable as the ones I have tried lately.

A mattress being turnable or non turn has nothing to do with the comfort of the mattress.

Edelman wrote: »

If it is made well, particular in the 'top' construction, it shouldn't move about anyway.

No, a proper pillow top is one with loose fillings, and not the ones with a layer of memory foam. So there isno way to stop loose fillings moving about.

Edelman wrote: »

I am not interested in having two different levels of support on the bed. Just one overall 'setting' is fine with me.

That's why I said you should find out if they still use two spring units.

Edelman wrote: »

Your comment about guarantees makes me think, with respect, that you feel any guarantee of any bed in the world - if it is 10 years, then a few months after those 10 years, it will totally fall apart?
From my reading, you should replace a bed after 10 years anyway.

That's not what I said. Most beds only have full guarantees for 12 months. After that it is often on a sliding scale. So it's another gimick because all they are doing is complying with the sale of goods act, but they use it as a sales gimmick.

Edelman wrote: »

I am sorry but I really don't understand what you mean. Are you saying, that me as a customer who is not trained in beds, would not have a clue if the person who was knowledgeable about beds, was REALLY knowledgeable or not?
Sorry but that could be said of anyone - even you. Like anyone from whom you take advice - you trust in their advice, and generally take from it what you can. If you don't feel you can trust them through their personality or attitude, you tend to walk away. Or at least I do!

Going back to my first reply to you. This is what I was talking about when I said that a good sales man for their employer and their own commision is completely different from a good sales man for the consumer. They are trained to sell, and are usually very good at convincing the consumer that they really need the product that they are selling, and that they really do need to pay the very high price. The more people that they convince then the more sales they get. This doesn't actually mean that the customer is getting what they need at a reasonable price.

Edelman wrote: »

Are we not allowed to advertise on here? People here seem to be saying how to StL beds are, and that is advertising. I found a Myers and a Sealy bed today, both excellent, but StL were more comfortable on first use. And that is exactly how every single buyer in the world, as far as I know, judges a bed when they buy it:

I don't think you understand.......as most people know I am in the trade, so I won't recommend anything I will just give general advice based on my extensive knowledge of the bed industry.