Me and my husband have a spring air mattress that is 17 years old and we need a new one. I don't sleep well during the night and have so many aches and pains. The problem is that we have been looking for 3 weeks and are so confused. We like the Simmons Beauty Rest but heard bad things about it. We looked at Sealy and it was like eeee. We looked at Serta, the Orginial Mattress Factory. We can't make up our mind. Guess after spending a lot of money on one we want it to last and be comfortable. Can anyone steer us to what we should buy? Since we had the spring air should we look at that? We are so confused! HELP!!!

My biggest surprise of your post due to our own personal experience and what we have read online by others is that you folks have survived for 17 years using the same innerspring mattress!!

My bride and I had terrible innerspring mattress experiences and switched to waterbed mattresses about 22 years ago (still love 'em!) but my commercial sounding waterbed mattress posts can be found all over this forum so I won't repeat unless you ask me to why we believe the waterbed mattress is a great alternative to other mattress types.

Online statistics seem to show that only about 60% of innerspring mattress owners are happy with their mattresses which means that close the 1/2 are NOT happy.   YIKES - before we bought our latest waterbed mattress a few months ago we spent about four months visiting all the area stores and testing every mattress we  could find - spring, memory foam, latex and even those VERY expensive Tempur-pedic types plus we spent hours and  hours reading online info and owner testimonials.

All I can say is that if we were going to leave our wonderful waterbed (this will never happen!) we would probably buy some kind of foam or latex and NOT innerspring.

Based on our in-store trials we would probably spend less for a no-name latex base knowing that we would have to probably add one or two topper layers to get things adjusted to our particular and personal comfort needs.  That's one of the big advantages of a hard side waterbed mattress - firmness is very easily adjusted - and we have learned over our many years (Gad we are getting old) that sleep comfort is a very individual thing and few folk find sleep comfort perfection unless the firmness can be adjusted.

So far as innerspring goes after our research and testing we would probably have bought either the Spring Air or a Serta.  BTW - when you look at Serta DO NOT pay attention to the different store model names as Serta (and all other mattress makers) give big stores different model names - we guess so no buyer can actually compare store to store or invoke price matching guarantees.

Anywho, with Serta the key is to go beyond the model name to the base Serta product designation - The Perfect Sleeper is the base or least well made model - fewer coils with fewer turns and less padding around the metal springs.  ALWAYS try to find The Perfect Day Serta on sale - about twice the coil count and better made with more and thicker layers of stuff over the springs - often a dilligent shopper can find a Perfect Day on sale for the same price as a Perfect Sleeper.

Unfortunately, as hard as we looked and as many stores as we visited we couldn't find a innerspring or latex or foam "name brand" mattress that seemed well made and with a good comfort feel for less than $2,000.  Sadly, a lot of folk comment online that whether they spent $1,000 of $ 5,000 their springs begin to sag or their foam begins to permanently indent as early as one year to three or four years - even mattress makers sort of say that regardless of length of warranty a mattress will probably retain original comfort for five to seven years and then it is probably time for the consumer to begin looking for a replacement.

It appears that natural latex would be the longest lasting and most reliable of any of the foam choices and it appears that a good latex core can be bought online a LOT cheaper than what you can find in local stores and I am sure the fans of latex will try to assist you with posting their personal experiences.

We believe that profit margins for mattresses are so big that they are almost criminal.  We're amazed that you can buy a very complicated big TV for around $1500 while a mattress that is mainly wood frame with cheap padding and cheap to make metal springs can retail at $4500!!  Something ain't right with that picture.

So after all the research we decided to stick with what had been working for us for over two decades - the hard side waterbed - very inexpensive ($300 for top of the line), waveless, extra firm but never hard, firmness easily adjustable and even temperature controlled - over the last 22 years we figure we have spent about $1200 for waterbed mattresses - we have never had one fail or leak.  The reason we have bought new ones is as we have gotten older our needs have changed plus the manufacturers just keep engineering them better and better and better - so the last one we bought in early Jan including the three inch Cloud9 foam topper and new heater (old one was 12 years old) cost us a little less than $500 including shipping and tax.

Okay  - I am sorry - I have reread my post and now and then it does sound a bit like a waterbed mattress commercial - we're just trying to share what has worked so well for us for so many years and a lot of folk don't know how far waterbed mattresses have come over the years since their introduction in the late 60s/early 70s.

We wish you well in your search for the perfect night's sleep cause it ain't easy to find!!!

shellbell25 wrote:

Welcome.

From your post I would suggest that you put your active mattress looking on hold for awhile and read through this forum. I know that you want to go out and resolve the problem right away, but first you need good solid information on mattresses. And not the kind that the stores will give you. It will take a while to get this information from this forum.   You've had the bed for 17years so another month or so will not make that much difference.  It will be time well worth spent.  It's very easy to go out and buy the first thing that feels comfortable, and there are alot of them that do with a short test.  But many of these mattresses in a short time, become nightmares for their owners.  Read about what others have experienced, what they have learned and then what they have done.  Good Luck to you.

Bill

If I were in the market today, I would look at cores of either latex, or springs only and purchase the cushy stuff we all like as toppers that you can replace every few years when they permanently squish down. If you like latex I would find a store local to you to try some and then if you like latex consider flo beds, sleep ez for the full package in a zippered cover, that you can switch up ( I would make a king or ca king with long or ex long twin cores and king top layers ) I think both offer a fair exchange program to make sure you are happy with the IDLs you choose; or I would consider ordering at foambymail.com like BillB did. If you like springs I would buy the best spring mattress I could afford that hopefully is turnable an NO excess cushioning. This you can add yourself. Like BillB said read all the posts you can here. You will both have your eyes opened and gain confidence in your search. Make sure you look at the link with all the cut open beds..BillB or Cloud9 do either or you know the fastest way to that link?
Best,
JoJo
p.s. I don't mean to slight water or air however IMHO both work on displacement which I don't care for. Also, I forgot to mention, make sure that you see the cutaway's of all the mattresses you consider...when you can see it with your own eyes you will know what you are getting.