I have several questions concerning foam mattresses sold by foam by mail. One is what is the difference between the HD36 foam and the Lux foam? and the second Question is what is the difference between lux regular and lux high quality and HD36 regular and high quality? I tried emailing and calling but have not heard back.

 

Well, I believe they say the "life" is 16 years versus 7 years, for the -HQ versus -R grade; as cheap as p/u foam is, it seemed like a no-brainer to go with the -HQ for me.  The difference between Lux and HD36 is mianly the firmness (ILD), AFAIK.   Two issues: I found it slightly tricky to find the -HQ in regular bed sizes;  I also found different prices at two of the different websites that FBM maintains.   Search my recent posts for details on both issues.

Rusty thanks so much for your reply. I bought a omf latex mattress and it is not firm enough. It also seems that one side sleeps firmer than the other. What causes that?  You seem to know ALOT more than I do what would you recomend for myself as a side sleeper 175lbs. I would like to go with a firm base and then a latex topper

 

thanks again 

I am a newbie here too, actually, and just slightly ahead of you on the learning curve.   All I can do is relate my experience. I also am a side sleeper and about 170lb.

I took apart a latex mattress I bought 10+ years ago and have been disatisfied with for awhile.   It had p/u eggcrate on both sides and seemed simultaneously too hard and not supportive enough.

So I'm starting with a single 6" slab of latex with unknown ILD and quality.   (By itself it's WAY too hard, so I'm guessing it's ILD 30+, probably higher).

FIrst I bought a 1" 20ILD latex topper from FBM.   Still too hard.   Folded it in half (so effectively 2") and not bad.   Unfolded it (girlfriend here for weekend) so it's 1" again and laid a piece of the old eggcrate on top of it.   Pretty comfy.   The main problem with the eggcrate is that it breaks down pretty quickly (they say).   So I'm thinking about buying a piece of "super soft foam":

http://www.foamdistributing.com/products/supersoftM.html

... from FBM (they have several websites, some even have different prices on the same product, go figure ...).

Cheap enough, so what if I have to replace it every 5 years.

Meanwhile, girlfriend wants a new mattress.  So I've started with 3" of LUX-HQ and 3" of HD36-HQ.   Will try the 1" piece of 20ILD latex on top of that, and I suspect it'll be too hard.   Will try the folding-in-half experiment and go from there.