Gutting a Beautyrest Black mattress - help with latex surgery
Oct 11, 2012 3:24 PM
Joined: Oct 11, 2012
Points: 4
Hi all,

 

 

 

 

After a short 5 years, our Simmons Beautyrest Black Exquisite mattress has large sag spots where my wife & I sleep.  We've looked at new Latex Bliss mattresses and like them alot, then I came across the posts on Mattress Surgery and became curious.

The bed is basically a 12" mattress with about a 4.5" firm pillow top sewn on.  It's a real problem trying to find deep pocket sheets to fit!  After cutting a couple of inspection holes, it looks like the mattress is (from the bottom up), 7.5" of mattress springs, 2" of foam, 1" of foam, 1/2" of some cloth/mesh material.  The topper is foam with some latex in it.

We really like the feel of the Latex Bliss Entice (3.0 Hybrid) & Beautiful (Natural) mattresses and would be shooting for a similar feel.  So our questions are:

1)  Just keeping the mattress springs, what would be some suggested latex layers & ILDs ?

2)  How do you keep everything in place (zipper enclosure)??

3)  Does anyone make a Topper similar to the Entice's gel cover?

We would like to bring the height of the mattress down, so any kind of latex/foam layers in the 4 - 6" range would be fine.

Thanks for everyone's input!  Once we get everything decided and ordered, I would be happy to post pics of the surgery for others.

This message was modified Oct 12, 2012 by plasma411
Re: Gutting a Beautyrest Black mattress - help with latex surgery
Reply #8 Oct 16, 2012 11:12 PM
Joined: Mar 15, 2012
Points: 182
mattresshound wrote:

Interesting info. I tried some of the Latex Bliss mattresses a year ago, but somewhat prefer latex over innersprings.

But, given these specs, why would the Nature be plusher than the Nutrition?

Good question... the plushness ratings come from their website.  If correct as they intend them to be, perhaps the additional 1" of 28 comfort makes the Nutrition 'feel' more firm, less plush.  Or, maybe the layer specs are not 100% accurate... but this would remain to be determined by further discovery.  At this point, I have fairly high confidence in the specs noted... and they 'feel' about right by my limited experience.

Mattress comfort is very subjective (to individual requirements and preferences)... and melding layers of various Latex together makes the equation more complex.  However, I suspect there is a not-to-difficult formula for putting Latex together to build a functional mattress... it's at least more appealing than buying a new over-priced over-built innerspring mattress in today's marketplace, imo.  This formula includes comfort layers and core layers similar to those noted above... in a cover and on a flat, slatted platform that ventilates from below... plus shredded Latex pillows that you can fine tune for your mattress and your head by adding or removing gobs of shredded Latex!

GK

This message was modified Oct 16, 2012 by GKDesigns
Re: Gutting a Beautyrest Black mattress - help with latex surgery
Reply #9 Nov 7, 2012 5:39 PM
Joined: Oct 11, 2012
Points: 4
Well, I finally had time to take the pillowtop apart.  There was a 1" foam piece, but the surprise was under it.  

A 3" Latex International 40 ILD Talalay topper!   What was more surprising was to see the indentations of our bodies in the Latex.  I was under the impression that Latex rebounded to its original shape.  The Latex is about 5 years old, but that seems rather quick to deteriorate.  I'm revisiting if I want to rebuild the mattress with Latex again.  I may switch to memory foam.  Any thoughts ?

Re: Gutting a Beautyrest Black mattress - help with latex surgery
Reply #10 Nov 7, 2012 8:43 PM
Joined: Mar 15, 2012
Points: 182
plasma411 wrote:

Well, I finally had time to take the pillowtop apart.  There was a 1" foam piece, but the surprise was under it.  

A 3" Latex International 40 ILD Talalay topper!   What was more surprising was to see the indentations of our bodies in the Latex.  I was under the impression that Latex rebounded to its original shape.  The Latex is about 5 years old, but that seems rather quick to deteriorate.  I'm revisiting if I want to rebuild the mattress with Latex again.  I may switch to memory foam.  Any thoughts ?

 

Some thoughts:

  • 40 ILD seems firm for a topper application.
  • 40 ILD suggests that it is Blended, not 100% Natural.  Blended LI Talalay has a 20 year warranty.  But 100% Natural has a 10 year warranty.  I understand LI began producing 100% Natural Talalay around 2005... it would be interesting to discover their early 100% Natural product failing after 5 years.
  • I would not expect Talalay to body set after 5 years.

It's a mystery or just some bad Latex.

GK

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