Most confortable bed/mattress?

[KRSESQ]

I started building my wb frame in 1980 and finally finished in 1985. In that time I think the design changed three or four times. Replaced the bag in 1988 and it's still in use (hurrah for Land & Sky). Picked up two spare Aqua Queen heaters while I worked at a furniture store in Fargo that was probably the last place in the state to sell waterbeds. So I should be good for a while.

Kevin

[Fat Tone]

Not sure my modern house was built to take that weight

[Dr Mordrid]

Here a "modern" house would use engineered wood I-beams for the floor joists, which are hell and gone stronger than conventional floor beams. They can hold more weight, be used to bridge longer spans and are much lighter than solid wood joists.

When you lay the floor over them you first lay wide beads of construction adhesive on top of the beams then screw the floors 4x8 tongue & groove plywood down, also gluing the T&G's together, which makes for one helluva strong structure. A big plus is that they're absolutely straight, meaning the floor is far, far less likely to have high/low spots.

[xortam]

Glad to hear you're having good luck with your Land & Sky mattress. That's the company we went with last year. We got the 5500 model with coils and found it to have just the right firmness. A lot of the bags these days are just too unsupportive. Our previous mattress was great and the waterbed store owner raved about their quality when we went to repalce it last year. Sadly that mattress company has long been out of business. I expect it will be quite some time before I'll have to worry about replacing this Land & Sky mattress.

I still have my original heater and it's still going strong. I included the heater from my parent's old waterbed as a backup in case my heater ever went out but I haven't had to resort to it yet. It made sense to go ahead and place the spare heater in place so I wouldn't have to drain the bed in case the old one failed and it also makes for a safe place to store the heater.

[KRSESQ]

I love those old Aqua Queen heaters. Stainless steel heating element fused between two layers of vinyl, no glue holding it together at all. Reliable as hell. AQ was sold to Land & Sky years ago but I don't see any sign that they're using the old design.

Most entertaining were the old Chemlex heaters. Etched copper element, basically a big circuit board, with the temp sensors and electronics sealed under a fiberglass cover with a metal base. When those flamed out they took the bag and sometimes the frame with them.

Who'd have thought that something under all that water could burn so well?

Any of this of any use, FT?

Kevin

[xortam]

I think my old heater may be a Chemlex. I'll have to search the web for pictures as I doubt I've got the paperwork filed. Now that I think about it, I may have already swithced over to my parent's old heater anyway. I'll check it out.

[xortam]

Yep, looks like I have a Chemelex. Looks just like this one: http://cgi.ebay.com/King-Size-Chemel...QQcmdZViewItem

I checked and I apparently had switched over to my parent's waterbed heater. I think I did that because I assumed it would be more efficient since it was newer than mine. I'll have to hunt around for stories about the Chemelex heater problems.

[KRSESQ]

Jeez, my bad. It wasn't Chemlex, it was Lotus. I tried to find a link to Lotus heaters but nothing. Lotus has been extinct for a LONG time.

Kevin

[xortam]

That's a relief. I still can go back to the Chemelex if the newer heater ever fails. I was wondering if the fire hazard pertained to my Chemelex heater since it didn't quite meet your description. For one thing, the sensor is a separate copper probe as seen on the Ebay auction photo. Plus I believe the packaging is vinyl with a foil base.

Speaking of foil ... I lined my bed with space blankets (aluminized mylar sheeting) in the hope that it may help retain some of the heat. I never took any measurements to see if it had any affect but I had the sheets lying around so I figured WTH.

[Gurm]

however, the most comfortable mattress I have ever slept on was a futon we had with a tightly packed solid cotton batting mattress.
I like a firmer mattress than most people though.
And that type of mattress would not hold up to regular use very well.

Dittos to that. My first "not inherited from relatives" bed was sophomore year of college, and was a futon. My uncle worked in a futon factory. This was their ultra-premium design, the mattress was double-cored and batted. No springs or other whackiness, just the nicest traditional-design futon made. It was amazing to sleep on... for a couple years.

Then we got a Sealy Posturpedic (sp?), which was very good but has over the past couple of years started to degrade. We are contemplating a new one later this year, and are torn on what to get as well.

One thing I can DEFINITELY tell you, though, is that the quality of the underpinnings matters quite a bit. We had to switch to a split box-spring because the place we moved to had stairs narrow enough that the full queen box spring could not be moved in, so we bought a split-queen. The frame, however, was never intended to support a split box-spring, and I tend to think that had a lot to do with hastening the decline of the upper mattress. We have braced and reinforced it, but to little avail.

Oddly enough, Julie's side is STILL more comfortable to me, even though we have rearranged, rebuilt, reinforced, etc. and it's more than just mental!

[TransformX]

KingCoil here.

[Brian Ellis]

Oddly enough, Julie's side is STILL more comfortable to me, even though we have rearranged, rebuilt, reinforced, etc. and it's more than just mental!

Would that still be the case if she weren't there?

[Fat Tone]

Spent some time learning about and 'testing' various beds this weekend.

We are both agreed we don't want solid foam (or water for that matter!). Some form of spring system with a layer of foam on top seemed most comfortable. Springs vary enormously, with pocket springs, open coils, layers of both, twin layers of open springs etc. And then theres the divan base - some are hard, others have sprung tops. That was news to me.

We really need a compromise as I need a lot more support than wifey. I know you can get different mattresses for each side of the bed with a ~2" pad across both, but they are very expensive and you need a step ladder to get on them.

The first big shop we went to showed us the 'Kingsdown' range, some of which were fantastic. They even have a bed that profiles you and suggests the best level of support. For the techies amongst us it is driven from a 42" touch screen! Sadly that range costs roughly twice what we are prepared to spend.

We are doing the whole bedroom, so the rest of the weekend was spent clearing out, visiting Ikea and planning. Ikea have this nifty bedroom design tool you can download, which lets you plan the room and fill it with thier furniture and create a detailed shopping list. You can even upload your design to their server, so you can continue to discuss it with staff in the store. Trouble is you can't do an online order from it. So I tried creating the order from scratch but it wouldn't let me order certain items (finishes) even though they were available in store. I give Ikea 10/10 for pricing and 7/10 for not quite being joined up. We now have to find time for another 40 minute journey each way with moaning kids just to place the order.

[Gurm]

Well, you don't like pure foam, or pure water. Have you considered the "sleep number" bed? I've tried one and it was very nice. It lets the two sleepers individually adjust the level of support/firmness, and it's the same size as a normal bed. It uses air pressure. It's also in the realm of affordability, IIRC.

Lindsay Wagner shills them on TV here, but they ARE quite comfy.

[WxDude]

We recently (as in the last month) went shopping for a new mattress. FT, like you, the store we
went to had one of those systems to determine what bed you should get. We tried a
Kingsdown mattress that was very nice, but it was ~US$1000 more than the brand we got.
It was very comfortable, but we ended up with a Miralux Rapture bed that was only very slightly
less comfortable than the Kingsdown. Miralux is made by International Bedding who
manufactures a majority of the bedding sold to hotels and hospitals. They do not spend
money on advertising, but instead just invest it into the beds themselves. We have been
pleased with it so far.

We looked into the Kingsdown mattress (which you need to purchase both the mattress
and box spring as they are designed to work with each other, but we heard some really
bad things about them.

Our prior mattress was a King Koil. Terrible mattress. We had it for 9 years, and what a
painful 9 years it was. We were just too cheap to replace it until now.

Just a little fyi

- Wx