The subject of mattresses came up in conversation with friends twice in the last week and everyone was horrified (as you will be) that my mattress is 21 years old. When purchased it was a very nice Tempurpedic back when they only had one kind. It’s 8" tall. The last time this was discussed here was in 2016 and I assume things have changed since then.
So I began my search and found that there are approximately millions of more choices now. There is no consensus amongst reviewers and I am annoyed. The searching has at least shown me that there is some relevant information to consider when choosing. I am mostly a stomach sleeper, sometimes back. I live in a temperate area so I don’t think I need a “cooling” mattress. I am not overly concerned about price.
There is a mattress store near me so I will head over there to try things out but I am very interested in the collective wisdom of the Dope both for direct suggestions and things that I need to consider.
When I started selling mattresses in the 80s, “expensive” ($600/ queen set was very high end) mattress sets had 20 year warranties; demonstrating that the manufacturers considered at least 20 years to be the “life” of a mattress. Over the years those manufacturers have worked very hard to reduce consumer’s expectations of a mattress’s life. Perhaps they will be happy when we are replacing them yearly.
Some of the “bed-in-a-box” (mail order) mattress companies get good reviews. And most have a sleep warranty, allowing you to reselect if you are unsatisfied.
Consumer Reports reviews mattresses (including bed-in-a-box brands). That’ll be as good a source of information as anything. If money is no object and you have been satisfied with your basic Tempurpedic why not get another? Just make sure the salesperson gives you a free set of pillows!
I’m very inclined to go with a Tempurpedic again and I will be visiting the local store which is like five minutes away from my house. (I still have one of the free pillows from last time. The ex got the other one in the divorce ) There is a mattress wholesaler place about a block away from them so I will be going there too.
“No Commission From Sleep Product Companies Or Retailers” No product endorsements • Independent from advertisers • Ratings based on 391,000 consumer experiences • Since 2008
Just an FYI, a mattress wholesaler near my home was on the news. They showed undercover footage of the workers sealing used mattresses in plastic - making them look factory fresh - and then selling them as new. One interviewed customer reported a stain on his “new” mattress, another reported bedbugs.
They may well be as good as it gets (other than Consumer Reports), but …
(to be clear: they don’t participate in affiliate programs directly with sleep companies, but do make money from sales through Amazon links), and make money instead from programmatic Google-supplied advertising (you may see sleep ads on the site, but they weren’t placed there by Sleep Like the Dead).
[which, IIRC, Consumer Reports is doing now, too]
I found the mattress industry to have the stink of the stereotypical old-school used car industry.
I went through three mattress-in-a-box mattresses and returned them all within the trial period. They were all either too hard, or too soft, or developed a slumping hole after a time, and all caused back pain.
I finally selected a Sleep Number bed and am extremely satisfied. It’s expensive, but it’s very useful to be able to change the hardness/softness to suit yourself.
And they last longer than most mattresses seem to - mine’s about 10 years old. My partner has one that’s about 20 years old and his housemate just bought one. Being able to change the firmness at will to suit how your back is feeling or to have different firmness levels for either person is just not possible with a regular mattress. Although that part may not be useful to the OP now.
As a small reference point, the $600 spent on a mattress in the 1980s (I picked 1985) is the equivalent of $1,730, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI Inflation Calculator.
When the mattress is delivered, make sure that it’s dry on the bottom. Cite: We bought one this year, and it wasn’t, a fact we discovered only after the truck left. (Yes, it was wet with water. Yes, it came covered in plastic.) Getting it replaced was a headache, and I was accused of spilling something on it myself. We bought it from a big store specializing in mattresses.
My mattress has a 20 year warranty. It’s also garbage because, if you read the fine print, you need to ship the mattress back to the manufacturer at your own expense AND pay the return shipping cost. So you can basically spend much of the price of a new mattress just using the warranty. And they will instantly reject it for a number of factors such as any surface staining regardless of what the failure actually was.
So “20 year warranty” doesn’t mean much given that it’s designed to ensure as few mattresses can utilize the warranty as possible. The number of mattresses getting warrantied is probably far outweighed by the number of people enticed into buying partially because of the idea that “20 year warranty” means quality.
I was really worried about this but I went to three stores yesterday and they were all totally chill. No one pressured me at all. They just showed me the choices and explained the differences. One of them did tell me that the “4th of July discount” was still available and it was ending soon but he’d still honor it for me for the next week or so.
My mattress is also around 20 years old. It’s super firm, which is what I want. I would buy the identical mattress if I could. (We want to move from Queen to King.) The problem is that practically no one makes that kind of mattress anymore.
Most mattresses are now one-sided, so you can’t flip them, and almost all incorporate memory foam, which is hot, and wears out much sooner than a basic innerspring mattress. The industry has “improved” mattresses into a much more disposable product. It sucks. I would pay a premium to be able to buy the exact same mattress in a bigger size. But, they just stopped making them that way.
The last time we shopped for a mattress we tested out sleep number, but it felt awful to us. Each of us has different requirements, which is why comfort ratings on review sites are useless. For some people a cheap Target mattress will be fine, for some it will be uncomfortable. Research first but then try it.
We went to multiple stores with no pressure. We got a relatively expensive memory foam one, at least 8 years ago, and it has been fine. We also got the putting the head and feet up feature which has been useful at times.
I wouldn’t buy a mattress mail order, since I don’t feel like swapping 2 or 3 out.
My opinions from buying one years ago:
–Don’t buy a pillow top mattress. You can’t flip them upside down to even out the wear, and it seemed to have uneven indents over time. If you want a pillow top, get a stand alone pad.
–The big mattress stores seem to have a pile of prices in their plastic price tag holder, and they cycle though them from week to week. It seems like they go around on Tuesday and pull the price from the bottom of the pile and put it on the top, which changes the price from $1100 to $1400. A few weeks later, it might be back to $1100. I would suggest taking the whole pile of prices out of the plastic tag holder and select the lowest price.
