Hi Nmart,
Buckling column gel
is certainly a unique material and is also very durable. It's one of those materials (much like memory foam) that tend to generate strong feelings either for or against it depending on preferences but for those who like how it feels and performs it can certainly make a great choice. You can see some of my comments about the Intellibed (and other types of buckling column gel) in
this topic
and in
this topic
and a forum search on
Intelligel
(you can just click this) will bring up more about them as well. A forum search on
buckling column gel
(you can just click this as well) will also bring up more comments and feedback about other versions as well.
For those where the unique properties and "feel" of a buckling column mattress are enough to justify the higher price and if they are a good match for the parts of your
personal value equation
that are most important to you then they can certainly be a suitable choice as long as there are no "weak links" in the mattress in the other materials besides the buckling column gel (see
this article
and the quality/durability guidelines I would
suggest here
)
Plus we’d like an adjustable base which costs $3700 at Intellibed (Mantua Contempo) or maybe we could get a similar model (Leggett and Platt S-Cape) from online for $1800. Intellibed says it’s okay to put an innerspring mattress on an adjustable base but it doesn’t seem quite right in my mind.
An adjustable bed is more of a "commodity" purchase based on features vs cost commparisons and can be purchased anywhere because they don't require "testing" like a mattress.
Post #3 here
and the adjustable bed thread it links to will be helpful in choosing an adjustable bed and also included some sources that you can use for "value references".
Most foam mattresses and most pocket coil innersprings will be fine on an adjustable bed. Innerspring mattresses that have helical wires or border rods can be customized specifically to be suitable for an adjustable bed but most of them wouldn't be suitable.
it has Soy foam instead of Latex foam
So called "soy foam" is just polyfoam where a small percentage of one of the two main chemicals used to make the foam (the polyol) has been replaced with a soy oil based derivative (see
post #2 here
). You can use the same quality/density guidelines as regular polyfoam.
Phoenix
