Boy has that been a load of study today!
I will start off by stating that the below is a summary of data uncovered on the Internet, and that I have limited experience actually laying on the mattresses discussed.
If you found this article by searching, I am a chiropractor with a crud load of experience and am very well connected to a lot of sharp people in the know.
For me I have always thought about mattresses as the firmer the better. As my body has reached where it is now, 43 years old, and 233 pounds, I have found my needs have changed somewhat. If a mattress is too hard, as my 14 year old Ikea mattress on a platform bed is, it begins to cut off circulation, and also cause painful pressure points. I must say that the Ikea mattress and slatted platform bed turned out to be great bargains that lasted a long time.
Chiropractic is practically a miracle cure for a lot of things, but your bed can muck up a lot of it when you sleep.
I will start off by saying that I never thought box springs were a good idea as you are using springs to try to create a flat hard surface. It appears that most of the bed manufacturers are starting to agree with my idea. So the below is all about the mattress, as we are going to buy a bed with a flat, hard platform on it.
I spent about 4 hours today reading up on the current bed situation. For years I have been reading promotional material from Temper Pedic and used their pillows, and have watched Lindsey Wagner talk about the Sleep Number bed from Select Comfort for I think about 10 years.
I like the Sleep Number concept because it sounds like the air bladder would never compress. It could pop right? But never be sorta half supportive, and half not.
One of my patients who is a very, very smart man and has been the head of many companies, and has a very stiff back, told me that he has really liked his Tempurpedic bed, but that it is harder to roll over while staying in one place. I have also heard that Temper Pedic beds tend to overheat people.
I on the other hand have loved my tempur pedic pillows. The only problem with the pillows is that after 6 months, mine totally loses its support and becomes worthless. I used to be able to return them to Sharper Image and get replacements, but the last time I went there they said they could no longer do that. The memory foam in the pillow rocks, and really improves my neck. In fact I even take it with me when I travel. It just looses its cush and gets soft and unsupportive starting at about month 3 or 4 after being new, needs to be replaced after 6 months, and if kept for a year like mine is now, is fairly worthless for support. I do still prefer my worn out one to a hotel pillow, but this weekend I will be replacing my pillow. So I kept this known compressibility of Temperpedic memory foam in mind during my search.
I started off at Consumer Reports website. I highly recommend this site, and for about $20 a year you can gather loads of information. To have accumulated the same amount of data as they had on mattresses would have cost me a hundred thousand dollars and taken a good year, so thanks Consumer Reports! They did some testing and came to the following conclusions.
1. Everyone is different.
2. If you lay on the mattress in your normal sleeping position at the store for 15 minutes and are happy, you will probably be happy after a month sleeping on the bed. Their actual study was a bit more complex than what I just said, so read it there if you want the details.
3. None of the Sleep Number, Tempur Pedic, or traditional mattresses are the best for everyone, so you need to do some more legwork yourself.
The Sleep Number concept always made sense to me. They say they have a 20 year warranty, (more to come on that) so since it is simply a big bag of air the only thing that could go wrong would be a leak, right? With a 20 year warranty I couldn’t see how I could go wrong. I also liked the fact that you can adjust the firmness.
I did a lot of Sleep Number Research today, and started the day off all ready to buy and spend around $2100 for the mattress without the frame. My wife has her heart set on a Crate and Barrel platform bed that takes a mattress on top, and that part is non-negotiable!
I read on many sites, and really kept an eye out for reviewers and posters history. Were they long time posters on a site, or had they just registered and posted, which is an indication of paid posters who work for a company and will write well or poorly about a product to help their company.
It seemed that some people just fell in love with their Sleep Number beds. There were also a surprising number of dissatisfied customers. I would say most of these appeared to be from people who did not do their due diligence before buying. So here is a list of downers for sleep number beds to watch out for. I am not saying they are true, but simply do your own research and know they may turn out to be problems.
1. Sleep number beds are basically a plastic base, one or two big air bags depending on the model, a piece of foam that separates the two air bags, and a cloth sack that holds the two air bags. The cloth sack can have foam or other fluffiness where you lay directly on it so you will not feel the air sacks under you. One writer stated that he felt the only difference between the $1000 model and the $4000 model was the thickness of the foam you lay on top of. Plain old foam can be purchased for around a hundred bucks or maybe slightly more. One guy said when he saw it laid out on the floor in front of him just before he assembled it, he could not believe he had just paid as much as he had for what he saw. That is marketing.
2. The old version of the air bags tended to get moldy according to more than one author. It appears that if you call the company they will send you replacement bladders. The new versions apparently do not get moldy.
3. If you get the split bed with one side having a separate air bag from the other side, there is a foam divider between the air bladders. Some people complained that if you lay on top of this foam divider you feel it sticking up into you. Also over time one person said it breaks down and loses its ability to support weight. Also there may be a problem if you have the pressure set to one of the firmer mattress settings, that people tend to roll into the center. If one person has a full air bag, and the other one at a lower setting, then one person may tend to roll down hill away from the center. To be fair, I would have to sleep on one to make total sense out of this.
3. The settings can change while you sleep on them. More than one person complained that they would set the sleep number to a certain number, then later in the night they would wake up in pain, check the number, and find out the air had drained out and the number changed. I don’t know if this was a compressor problem, a setting problem or an air leak problem.
4. The warranty. It is promoted as a 20 year warranty which is what orginally sold me. If you read the warranty on their site it says that it is a full on warranty for manufacturer defect for 2 years. Then the fun begins. After 2 years you have to pay the first 20% of the cost of the replacement part plus another 4% for each year from the original date of purchase. That means if you return a part 3 years after purchase, you have to pay 24% of the cost. That should probably cover the Sleep Numbers factory costs in my guesstimate. After owning it for 10 years, you are paying 60% of the retail cost of the replacement, and are getting 40% off. At that point it sounds more like a sale to me on the replacement parts, than a warranty.
They also say they do not cover “mattress cover compression, foam compression” and a few other things. As I said about my Temper Pedic pillow, and my previous experience with foam, the reason they do not cover this is probably because any support created by the foam is gone within a few years.
So my summary on the above, based only on reading, not on use, was that you are spending a few thousand dollars on a bed that you can really count on for maybe 3 or 4 years?
On to the Temper Pedic beds. The base model for the mattress only starts at $1600. It would be totally worth it except for the fact that based on my own foam experiment with my pillow, I know the Tempur Pedic pillow only lasts about 6 months. For years they have sent me promotional info with discount pricing for the mattress and I almost bit many times. The pilow is a great product. I am sure the mattress feels wonderful to sleep on, as it does at the Sharper Image stores, but what about compression of the foam and the associated loss of support?
On the Temper Pedic website it says they have a 10 year warranty but again it starts pro-rating after year 5. So you have an appartently killer warranty up to five years, and then you have to pay 50% of the cost in year 6, 60% in year 7 etc. But what does it cover? If it covered the fact that the mattress breaks down and gets soft and does not support as well, then sign me up. The exact wording for the key part is as follows,
“For warranty purposes, “defective” is defined as: … 2) an area of compression in excess of 1″ when compared with edge height when the mattress is placed on a solid, flat surface; or …”
If I read it correctly, it sounds like it means that you set the mattress on a flat surface and you check does it sag down more than 1″?
Well, I weigh 233 pounds, so me laying on it is very different than a mattress sitting on the floor with nothing on it. You can have a 6″ high block of jello, and a 6″ high block of steel with nothing on them, but just because the block of jello is not sagging does not mean that it will support me as well as the block of steel.
By the way if you are with Sleep Number or Tempur Pedic and want to correct any of the above I will give you an excellent way to do so at the end of this article.
So my opinion on the warranties is that they know what they are selling you and how long it will last. If a company knows their product will last a certain period and they are sure, then they can warranty the product for that long. If you start having prorated warranties, it gives me a pretty good idea of how long the product is expected to last. If you consider that many retail products are marked up 100% to 400% or more, then my guess is that they consider the products to last maybe 3 to 5 years? Just my opinion.
So what to do? The problem we were trying to get away from is that a traditional mattress only lasts 10 years tops, and maybe even less.
I have some good connections with a friend who is very well connected to the origins of Costco , so I have some inside dope on the subject. My understanding is that Costco simply takes the price they buy a product at and increase it by about 10%. This is why I have recommended a lot of people to buy diamonds from Costco if you need to buy an engagement ring. Compare the prices if you don’t believe me, as they are roughly the same as discount Internet diamond sellers but from a company you can trust.
I checked online at Costco and saw you could buy a good quality traditional mattress for around $750. So lets say that lasts you for 3 years. In that case you could get a new one every three years for 10 years, and it would cost about the same as a sleep number bed or a Temper Pedic. But what if you don’t like it? I just e-mailed Costco and am waiting for a response. From what I can read, if you don’t like it simply call Costco up and they will come pick it up if you bought it online. If you buy it from the store it appears they charge you a bit to come get it. I will blog about what they say back in their e-mail.
Then I really started laughing when I found on the Costco site a mattress which is a two sided air mattress style, with 3 inches on memory foam on top. It kinda sounds like Sleep Number and Tempur Pedic had a little romance, and this is their offspring. It may turn out to be the princess and the pea solution.
So if it works out, then it will be $750 for the best of both of the new luxury mattress solutions. And if it turns out to be a total piece of crud? Costco can come get it. If it only lasts a few years? then it is no different from the reviews of the big money mattresses, at a third of the cost.
Now to be fair to the big players Sleep Number and Temper Pedic.
If there is any data above that is incorrect, please just e-mail me the correct data with the supporting document and I will change it. Would you like me to have my tens of thousands of readers here the real story? If you really think that I will be so blown away by the product that I will think it is worth the $2000, or whatever the cost is, and that it will really last, then send one over. I will sleep on it for a month or two or however you would like to lend me one, and then I will write my results. Based on what I read though, I would not want to purchase one until I have seen what it could do for a few years to really see the durability.
By the way I think the next thing Consumer Reports needs is a longer study on the beds that goes at least a few years to test the durability.
So to any of the mattress manufacturers, if you want to prove it to me, then just send me an e-mail and I will be more than fair with you. Otherwise I will be picking out a mattress from Costco in the under $1000 range over the next few days and trying it out on our new platform bed from Crate and Barrel.
So correct me if I am wrong, and if you want me to test out your product and discuss it here send me an e-mail and we can discuss it.
Much Love and sweet dreams!
dk
32 responses so far ↓
orie // Jan 3, 2008 at 12:42 pm
I’m glad you took the time to research this subject. It was very informative, non-objective, and interesting. Good for Costco, sometimes the biggest kid on the block is the cheapest and most honest. Who would’ve thunk it?
richard // Jan 5, 2008 at 4:46 am
Dr. Klein,
With what you have done here you could have won either side of the Iowa Caucas by a wide margin saving millions in advertising and hours of useless statistics. You might sell your analysis to a New Hampshire pretender for the cost of your new mattress.
robin // Jan 5, 2008 at 8:25 am
I too have been shopping and researching, using consumer reports, however I feel they are trying to please everyone instead of the bald faced truth which is why I pay to read them in the first place. Anyway, I too am ready to spend the money however we need a Cal. King so the price goes up considerably. So today I am going to go to Costco and check it out. This article has been very timely and helpful. Thanks a ton!
Sweet Dreams,
Robin
AnneMarie J. // Jan 11, 2008 at 11:41 am
Thank you so much…we were going to purchase a Sleep number tomorrow morning..and now we have decided to hit Costco also. We buy so much there and have always been satisfied. We agree that the hype is not always consistent with the quality of the product. The facts in this matter do remian that everyones comfort level is different but it truly does sound like the Sleep Number is an overpriced Aerobed…I already have one of those….and I do not want to sleep on that except when camping…Thanks again for all your research and honesty…
AnneMarie
Mary // Jan 23, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Thanks for the great info. We had a Sleep Number bed for a year. Hated it. It always felt like we were falling into the middle. The actual sleeping area for each side of the queen size bed was about the width of a crib. Have had a Temperpedic for 8 years and love it. We did find the first couple of inches softened somewhat after about a year, but still provides great comfort and support.
dk // Jan 25, 2008 at 2:53 am
Mary,
thanks for the positive feedback on the Temperpedic. How does it feel after 8 years compared to brand new? How many years do you guess it has left?
dk
Mike // Jan 25, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Thanks for the info! Like others, I too am on the mattress hunt. My search has lead me to Latex Mattresses. I haven’t bought one yet but I’m close. There is a ton to learn about Latex mattresses but the Pros include: longevity/durability, dust mite resistant, pressure relief that rivals/surpasses Tempurpidic and Select Comfort (if you believe the marketing), Can be a 100% natural product as opposed to the Tempurpidic which is petroleum based, won’t overheat like the Tempurpidic, can be ordered in a variety of firmnesses. Con’s could be price but it’s in the ballpark with Select Comfort and Tempurpidic.
If your CostCo mattresses doesn’t work for you, you might look into Latex. You can Google Euro Flex Sleep Systems for their site. They’re located on Morena Blvd on the way to that particular CostCo. And no I don’t work there ;-).
Warranties for Latex mattresses vary a bit but most of them are in the 15 years and up range. Euroflex offers a lifetime warranty…which I think says a lot about their product. I quote, “All of our mattresses are assembled by hand to insure the highest quality. In the unlikely event that your Euro-Flex latex becomes deformed, Euro-Flex will replace it without charge.”
A good place to start your research on latex is by Googling Latex International. They supply the latex for Euroflex and a host of others. There is plenty of info on their site and lists of others who buy latex from them inlcuding a number of the big mattress manufacturers.
My thought process on Latex goes like this. If you take a look at all the higher end mattresses that use inner springs, and even the higher end Select Comfort, they all use some combination of latex and/or memory foam. Seems to me that they all agree that these two foams are superior. So why not go with a solid foam mattress? Which one is more comfortable comes down to personal preference. Good luck to all!
dk // Jan 26, 2008 at 1:25 am
Mike,
I predict you don’t work for the company, otherwise you would be saying that you have owned one for 20 years, and it is fantastic! and never worn out!
I have not heard about the latex mattresses yet. Thanks for sharing.
dk
yolik // Jan 27, 2008 at 8:36 am
dk - Thanks for all your helpful info.
My husband & I own a sleep number bed. He, too, was shocked the first time he broke down the bed (I was there when they put it together). He believes it should cost about $500. We have vastly different sleep numbers ( I am firm at 60 and he likes 35) and I tend to fall into “the pit”! Also, I notice if you like to sleep close to the edge of the bed, you can feel the foam divider which is uncomfortable. The marketing does make you feel as if your back pain goes away! Not so with us but maybe because of my bulged disc and his stiff back from years of working it. So, we are considering going the foam mattress way either novaform (from costco), tempurpedic or others. Our initial concern when we started researching was the foam mattress traps heat. I have heard since they have corrected that. Does anyone know? Does anyone own a novaform?
Thanks.
dk // Feb 1, 2008 at 7:15 pm
yolik, I am hoping that since the foam part is only 3 inches tick on the one we are getting, and it is full of air underneath, that it will distribute the heat. We will see!
Jennie // Feb 5, 2008 at 8:21 pm
I hated my sleep number bed. The foam divider in the middle was WAY harder than the air bladder on the highest setting. I often got rolled over on to (my side was always softer) and forget having sex on it. (which side do we want to do this on tonight dear? Because you can’t in the middle).
My 2 cents…
Jennie
yolik // Feb 7, 2008 at 9:18 pm
Ha Ha! That’s too funny Jennie. Well, I am seriously thinking of the noraform. The tempur-pedic is really expensive so we’ll just have to wait and see.
yoli
Betsy // Feb 8, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Well, I just have to put in a word for the Tempur-Pedic mattress! I bought mine in the spring of 2005 (as a present to myself after leaving a job I no longer loved after six years). Now, my husband and I sleep in separate bedrooms because of our various physical problems — so I am the only one, except for two cats on occasion, who sleeps on this mattress. Also to be noted is the fact that I have severe osteoarthritis and have had multiple hip and knee replacements. Okay: all in all, I would say the Tempur-Pedic is the most comfortable mattress I’ve ever slept on. It’s a neat combination of firm (which I love) and cushy (which is surprisingly nice). And those ads where you see a glass of wine sitting on one side of the mattress while a person jumps up and down on the other side, with the wine not spilling out of the glass, could really be true. I know that my cat isn’t disturbed at all when I get in or out of the bed while she’s sleeping.
Really, the only difficulty I have with this mattress is that it’s harder to pop up and out of bed than it is with a spring mattress, because while the springs give you a little push, the memory foam does not. It just cradles you. So extra effort is required to get yourself out of bed, and that’s mildly annoying. When I returned home after three months post-surgical rehab last spring, I found it very hard indeed to wiggle my body towards the edge of the bed. But as the hip healed, the wiggling became easier.
I guess because of that little problem I’d have to give the Tempur-Pedic only four stars instead of five. I haven’t personally had trouble with the pillows collapsing, but I’ve only been using them for three years…
Thank you, dk, for doing all the research on mattresses and giving us a forum to discuss them!
dk // Feb 9, 2008 at 1:19 am
It’s fascinating to me too. This is the only place I have ever seen it discussed where no one has any commercial interest in which one is chosen. I think the more actual stories that are left, the better info people will have on how to choose their mattress.
Jim M. // Feb 9, 2008 at 10:03 am
Your article is well done. I too have been going through the process of selecting a bed. I am not particularly price sensative, but I want a comfortable bed that will last. The Temperpedic warranty specifically excludes mattress softening as a warranty claim item. The beds are great but I am concerned about softening and being stuck with an uncomfortable bed. I have stumbled across a websit - http://www.healthyfoundations.com - which offers a foam bed that they describe as comperable to the middle of the like Temper pedic for about 1/2 the price. Additionally they offer a 365 day guarntee. They claim to refund you money for any reason after 365 days with only a $75.00 restocking fee. I have not purchased from them, but they make a strong arguement. You may want to go there for a looksee.
Don Stout // Feb 14, 2008 at 9:35 am
I own two tempurpedic mattresses - one ten years old and one six years old and have noticed no significant change. I’m about to purchase a new king size for a lake home.
Tim // Feb 17, 2008 at 11:20 am
We have had a sleep number 7000 for about a month. Took a week or so to find sleep numbers, but really like the bed now that we have found our numbers. Noticed that the bed has increased in firmness a bit three times. Called sleep number folks and they said it is normal fluctuation with change in room or body temp. I really like the bed when it is set at my sleep number, but not when it is 15 points higher. Hope this wont be as big of an issue when the room temp is a little higher in the warmer months. Love the bed but worried about this fluctuation in number.
Judi // Feb 20, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Today we received out tempurpedic. I’m very glad to hear from the people who love them. King size with mattress cover ($70guarentee 10 years) all said and done $2700.
I did come across another website for the angel bed they claim to be the same for about $1000. less. We have had the topper from Costco for about 3 years and loved it. Got us past some time with a 14 year old mattress.
Appreciate the time you took and will keep an eye. Thank you and the others for your honest opinions.
Johnny Wang // Feb 22, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Thanks for this general mattress info. Hopefully people who are “on the hunt” for a new mattress can read this. Good mattress forum going too.
CapnKirk // Feb 23, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Dk and everyone.
The Costco bed you are referring to is nothing new. In late December 1997 my wife filed for divorce and I moved out. I temporarily used an air mattress until I could afford a real bed. Going away for Christmas that year for a week to my relatives when my drunken landlord needed to perform work in the house proved to be eventful. Instead of closing my 2 cats in my bedroom for the few hours he was there working (Like he was supposed to), he left the cats closed in that bedroom for the entire week I was gone.
I returned to find 3 or 4 empty liquor bottles
open and setting on counters, hungry, thirsty, crying cats locked in my room, with a huge mess they had made, and my air mattress destroyed. This forced me to buy a real bed pronto. I had always heard radio ads for The Sleep Train in Sacramento about an hr from my house, so I gave them a try. I worked a pretty good deal with them and walked out the door with a $2500 Simmons Air Floatation System for $600 (because they had been discontinued, and I bought it without the box springs or the frame.) Now this was right around the time I seem to recall first hearing about the Sleep number beds and the tempurpedic beds, so I assume Simmons decided there was no market with these beds, or they couldn’t compete with the 2 NOW giants. [or maybe simmons still makes them? I'm not sure.] This new bed seemed to be a mixture of the 2. Upon arriving home with my new bed in pieces I began to assemble it and discovered it was simply memory foam with cut outs on each side where the air bladders went, and memory foam on sides, top and bottom, and then memory foam encased inside the top, zippable part of the mattress. At first this bed was heaven. I had never slept in so comfortable a bed, and it was adjustable, by inflating or deflating the mattress bladders each person could set their own comfort (but there was no number system, just a fill it up or let out the air until you like it system) I slept on this bed for about 2 years alone.
Later when I got involved with someone and we decided to live together, I learned something new. She liked less air on her side. This caused the downhill slope phenomenon you mentioned earlier. I woke up many mornings with her aggravated that I had rolled into her space and was crowding her. To compensate I lowered my level. Now I must say, on this bed I didn’t notice the middle (”Ridge”) support or seperator piece ever being a problem during sleep, or during intimacy until we both had lower settings.
Sometime soon after I began waking up in a hole that I literally could barely get myself out of. The air bladder on my side had failed and all the air would leak out before the night was through. She decided she wouldn’t mind dealing with having no air since she liked it lower anyway. We took the bed apart and switched the bladders. This meant she had to air it up 2 or 3 times a night, which always woke me up. I called The Sleep Train (even though I now lived in Los Angeles, they happily helped me out.) They told me that the company that warrantied those beds (10 yr full parts and replacement) went out of business, in the bankruptcy or whichever proceedings, the government made them assign a 3rd party company to continue the warranty replacement of those beds and parts. They instructed me to contact a certain company by mailing a letter stating the issue, with a copy of my original receipt.
(which I did have and found after some digging) and then I would have to pay the full replacement price, but would later be re-imbursed by them sending a check. I did this.
It took about 6 months to get the replacement, (and about 9 to get the re-imbursement check) and they sent replacements for both bladders not just the 1 that had failed.
Upon installing the new bladders I then noticed the top memory foam was not as comfortable as it first was when I bought it. in fact, the top piece had moved itself into an off position and refused to move back into its original place. I also noticed I could now feel that center divider piece no matter what.
(now here 10 yrs later I still have this bed)
I have now lived alone again for some 3 yrs (happily) and Just the other morning I again awoke finding myself in a “Hole”.
The bladders are failing again.
I refuse to go through another 9 month dilemma of paying for and waiting for the new bladders or re-imbursement check, even though I still have about 6 months to go on the warranty.
It’s been an ok bed, great the first few years, but merely sleepable and only tolerable for most of the time thereafter.
I will never purchase this type of bed again.
Be it Simmons, or Sleep number or any other company. Air systems WILL fail at some point.
and its a real pain in the rear to get them replaced, not to mention the amount of time you have to sleep on a broken and uncomfortable bed while you wait for replacement parts.
My understanding of Tempurpedic is that they are not just normal “Memory Foam”
which after a year or so becomes crushed and less comfortable, but Tempurpedics own guaranteed spin on memory foam. My father and many of my friends have tempurpedics and have had for between 3 and 8 yrs, and not a one of them has complained about any type of breakdown in the foam, and they each claim it is just as comfortable now as when they first bought it. They also tell me they have not experienced feeling hotter than on a normal bed.
In summary, after reading through what you have here (and much appreciated you posted this) it prompted me to review my thoughts on my own bed and call and interview those I know with tempurpedics.
Sleep number or Memory Foam/Tempurpedic Sleep number mixture type beds are just not for me. been there, done that and am done with it. Your articles and posts here have helped me decide, I will be going with a non-AIR system. This leaves memory Foam and Tempurpedic ONLY systems for me to consider. I have read and heard many complaints about NORMAL memory foam systems deteriorating after a few years, but not Tempurpedic. This means I will bite the bullet, and fork out the funds for a Tempurpedic with hopes I will be making a great investment. thanks again for helping me decide.
-Capn
dk // Feb 23, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Capn,
Thank you for your personal insight. I think you really nailed one point, which is the impermanence of any system one buys.
I can say with absolute certainty that my Temperpedic pillows lose a significant amount of their support after 6 months, but there may be a different phenomena with the mattresses.
Crate and Barrel said our bed frame is ready. We now have to get the room wired for the new T.V. and then we will get the bed all moved in and set up.
Stay tuned…..
jack // Feb 25, 2008 at 11:16 am
This information has been very helpful to me. I too am searching for a new matress. I started my search at Costco and after this reading and my other research, I’ll end my search there. Mattress’s are one of those things that you need, but it’s very confusing to get good information. This helped.
Jake // Feb 25, 2008 at 3:32 pm
I am in total love with my memory foam bed, i believe it is 4.5 pd foam, the regular thickness of the bed, the first couple nights there was nothing special, just a very comfortable bed, then i started noticing pains and aches going away, i would recommend this is anyone and everyone 2,000 for a bed is a small price for this kind!!!!!! the only caution i have is that i love firmness, so if you do not like firm matrresses, you may be better off with a sleep number— oh which i’ve heard a ton of problems about
Jane C // Mar 11, 2008 at 8:55 pm
I’m just starting my mattress hunt and Google put this article third on the “temperpedic” results. Thanks for all the great information and comments. Sweet dreams to all!
dk // Mar 12, 2008 at 11:21 pm
Hi guys! Stay tuned for just a minute longer. The mattress is set up, and doing good. It has now been tested. If I have a second this weekend, I will post the full results of the testing, and photos of the set up and a full description on this blog. Keep checking back.
dk
KT // Mar 15, 2008 at 5:46 pm
We have had our Tempur pedic for 3 years and love it!! I do admit it is a little hard to move around in because it hugs the body but the whole point is not having to move around. Our dog (lab) loves it to and we don’t wake up when she gets on, although we do make her get off, she hogs the bed. We are going to buy one for our home by the beach and looking at the Costco (Sealy) for the guest room. Glad to find this report, thanks and good luck with your purchase.
PB // Apr 17, 2008 at 3:46 pm
I purchased my select comfort bed before a sleep number was invented. I have had it about 12 yrs and have had no regrets buying it. I bought just the mattress a put it on a regular box springs & frame. We have loved it since the day we bought it. The last six months or so I have notice the center & side foam started to break down and it will cost me $100.00 to replace it. I have also had to replace one of the air chambers about four years ago and paid $35.00 to do so. My initial cost for the bed was $1100.00 and well worth it, my side has little air and my husband’s side is med to hard don’t have numbers and just guess when we change it. We have a second home and have slept on regular mattress there for about 5 yrs and hate it so it’s time
to buy the real thing. But since they have changed it to have a foam pillow top on it not sure if I will like it. Then I was on costco and saw their nova air/foam bed, like the price but not sure if I want to buy a look-a-like or the original. Have read all comments and all I can come up with is everything bad about sleep number is since they made it sleep number. So if I buy original will it really be like my original one? Not sure and trying to decide.
Vince Prbit // Apr 24, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Well, I just spent $3500 on my Rhapsody Tempur Pedic and am on a 90 day trial. If I do not like the mattress, they will come and get it and no cost to me. We purchased the Tempur-HD. I love it and even if the thing does wear out in a decade, I can justify the cost having a deformed spine, bulging disks, and all kinds of pain related these. The mattress is more relief than acupuncture!
I suggest you put your money where your mouth is and do the 90-day trial. You get what you pay for! A great mattress under $1500 is a falicy.
Best Regards,
Vince
dk // Apr 24, 2008 at 11:33 pm
Our little under $1,000 Costco mattress has been proving itself to be very comfortable.
dk
Kristie // Apr 25, 2008 at 11:55 am
Thank you dk for all your research and comments. Thanks to the rest of you for your comments, as well. After reading the many frustrations regarding the Sleep Number bed, I am happy to have happened along this blog site, and can say that I’m now less inclined to want one. I was actually wondering about being intimate on both types of bed, and even suggested to my husband that we try out both beds in local hotels. Apparently the Radisson Hotels use the Sleep Number beds, whereas many hotels utilize the Temperpedic. Temperpedic’s website lists hotels in one’s home state, so trying one out should be easy.
Thanks, again, for all who have shared their experiences. It makes my personal research that much easier! Sleep sweet!
Leisha // Apr 27, 2008 at 1:08 pm
I found your site to be very helful and unbaised. My mother has decided she wants a sleep number bed and since I had no knowledge of the types of air beds I Googled and found your site. I am especially happy I learned the true facts about the “20 year warranty” before we shop. Thanks for a very informative post and I definitely will take a look at Costco.
ljtseng // May 4, 2008 at 9:14 pm
My husband and I have had our tempurpedic for two years now. The nice thing about it is its soft enough for me and firm enough for him. Also, he tosses and turns a lot at night but it never wakes me up. I havent noticed it holding in heat. So far it’s as comfortable today as it was the first day we got it.
There are a few things I dont like about it. One, for the first couple months my neck really hurt. It doesnt anymore, though, the bed really isnt very soft. Two, its heavy!! We have a cal-king. And lastly, there’s no bounce to it so sex is not as fun….
Its honestly not the most comfortable mattress ive ever slept on though. If i was single i wouldnt buy one. We got it as a compromise; I like really soft beds and he likes really firm ones. I only like it because my husband’s tossing and turning doesnt wake me up.
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