Hi bobrayburn,
I have had a terrible experience with my current mattress (Serta Vera Wang latex). It quickly began sagging on both my side and my fiancee's side to the point she has back pain nearly every night. Of course it was just below the warranty threshold so there wasn't anything we could do. We've had the mattress for 3 years or so and are finally looking to replace it.
Unfortunately your experience with the Vera Wang "so called" latex mattress is not unusual. In most cases ... there are also layers of polyfoam and fiber in the mattress which are the "weak link" in the mattress and would be the main reason for why your mattress is breaking down so quickly. You can see the contents (by percentage) of your mattress on the law tag although it won't tell you the position or thickness of the layers or materials. This is one of the reasons why it's so important to know the quality of all the layers in a mattress so you can identify any potential "weak links" in the mattress ... especially in the upper layers which will soften and break down more quickly than the deeper layers in a mattress.
I've looked at and spoken with folks from both Dreamfoam and BB, both of which have been very helpful. I've heard fantastic things from friends on Tempurpedic mattresses, however I'm not willing/able to spend $4k to $5k on a mattress, especially after the recent mattress debacle. I'm a bit skeptical.
Dreamfoam and Brooklyn Bedding are sister companies and like all the
members of this site
I think very highly of the quality and value of the mattresses they make. The first place to start your research for a new mattress though is post #1 here which has all the basic information, steps, and guidelines you will need to make the best possible choice (and avoid the worst ones). Tempurpedic is one of the "major brands" that I would avoid and there are many smaller independent manufacturers that use the same or better quality materials that have substantially better prices and value.
I wanted to know people's experience with BB memory foam beds, specifically the Cool Supreme. It seems like a very good mattress and if their claims that it is equal in quality and comfort to Tempurpedic are true then it is worth a shot. Also their 120 return guarantee makes me a lot more comfortable.
A forum search on
Brooklyn Bedding
(you can just click this) will bring up a great deal of feedback about them and a forum search on
Cool Supreme
will also bring up some posts and feedback about this specific mattress. They use good quality materials and have very good value. I would be very cautions about using other people's experience on a mattress as a guideline because it may be very different from your own and a mattress that is suitable for one person may be completely unsuitable for another ... no matter what the quality or value of the materials. The Cool Supreme approximates the Tempurpedic Cloud Supreme Breeze and if you use this for testing in terms of PPP (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief, and personal preferences) then it will give you a good idea of whether the mattress is suitable for your needs and preferences which would much more specific to you than other people's experience on the same mattress.
Lastly, has anyone ever returned a mattress to BB? How easy/difficult is that process?
The process itself wouldn't be that difficult (you would need to wrap it and get it ready for shipping) but as you can
see on their site here
... it could be costly because you wouldn't be able to compress it and would need to use truck freight which is more expensive than shipping a compressed mattress by courier.
Phoenix