Complaint Review: SERTA MATTRESS COMPANY - Austin Texas

After reading all the RRs on mattresses, several things are obvious, since you asked for any help, maybe this will..

Wife and I are both engineers. Weve been experimenting with mattresses and foam as far as sleeping on them.

Notice that almost every complaint is due to the mattress sagging. (or all of them).

Remember years ago when this didnt happen? Years ago, the mattresses were not made with FOAM.

FOAM is the problem. Foam is a chemical substance that chemically reacts and makes a very weak structure that is full of HOLES. The holes have off gasses or air in them.. Think of a large bag full of balloons- thats basically what foam is. If it didnt have lots of spaces, it wouldnt be "soft," it would be hard.

See:

http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/364/1838/15.full.pdf

 as an example of what foam is.

There is ZERO chance a human being can sit or lay on a piece of foam for 8 hours a night for years and not have it collapse- the structure that is the foam is very thin and weak and that repeated pressure collapses it. Take a round soda straw and repeatedly squeeze it between your fingers, it wont be round for long, and the FIRST time its strength is exceeded, its permanently creased.

Look at foam as an engineering material:

http://matweb.com/search/DataSheet.aspx?MatGUID=91d44cae736e4b36bcba94720654eeae&ckck=1

look at the entry for "compressive yield strength" - one PSI (pound per square inch) "Yield" means ***the force needed to PERMANENTLY DAMAGE the foam***.

 This is data for a foam chosen at random, I dont know exactly what kind the mattress makers use, it, for softness, may be much less strength than this example.

One PSI is a weight of one pound on a square surface one inch x one inch. Lets say your knee contacts the foam and puts pressure on a spot 2x 2 inches, thats 4 square inches with 100 pounds force. Thats 100/4 psi = 25 PSI. thats FAR more force than needed to cause the foam to yield, or be permanently damaged. If you lay on your side on the foam with 150 pounds body weight, on a space 4 inches wide by 3 feet long, thats 1.04 PSI ENOUGH TO PERMANENTLY DAMAGE THE FOAM.

Now, do that every night for 8 hours.

These mattresses covered in soft foam cannot do anything but be destroyed by body weight.

Compare this to the foam in car seats, that foam is very dense. It survives 10s of years of body weight while driving, but its fairly stiff and dense foam, supported by springs, with your body weight distributed across the surface.

Notice how they excuse this damage, notice the mattresses are covered by, as I just heard today from a mattress store, of about 1-1/2 inches of foam. Notice the so called "warranties" do not cover impressions 1-1/2 inches or less?

That means they will refuse to warrant TOTAL COLLAPSE of the foam surface. They know it.. its a game.

Second thing to notice - most of the Reports filed here were for mattresses purchased from bargain outlets that usually try to sell as cheaply as possible.

Warranties cost money and I suspect the companies will do anything possible to evade a warranty claim for a mattress sold through a discount outlet.

The takeaway- the mattresses are a faulty design, they know it. Sure it sounds good, and initially feels good to lay on a nice, soft foam surface, but as these Reports show, the foam can not survive it. The soft foam is a sales gimmick that people fall for, not realizing whats wrong with it.

Another scam they are running is to pretend that "foam" is "cool". Foam is an INSULATOR, theres nothing cool about it. Look at the "thermal conductivity" ratings of various foams and compare that to metals like aluminum. It is not possible  to claim foam is "cool" when its above a thick insulating body known as a "mattress" that is made of more components that do not transfer heat easily.