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Going to check out the mattress factory today!

Hi Jra3,

You're certainly heading in a good direction and I'm looking forward to your feedback after your visit .

Phoenix

Great experience so far at the mattress factory. I also checked out the big boxes. I recently tried the Beauty Rest Black Hybrid Gladney Firm ( www.mattressfirm.com/simmons-beautyrest-black-hybrid-gladney-14-luxury-firm-mattress.aspx ). Liked it. Seeing if Peter can duplicate. Could you comment on your thoughts concerning this mattress? Looks like 3 layers of memory foam on top of pocketed coils.

Hi Jra3,

Great experience so far at the mattress factory. I also checked out the big boxes. I recently tried the Beauty Rest Black Hybrid Gladney Firm ( www.mattressfirm.com/simmons-beautyrest-...y-firm-mattress.aspx ). Liked it. Seeing if Peter can duplicate. Could you comment on your thoughts concerning this mattress? Looks like 3 layers of memory foam on top of pocketed coils.

Unfortunately they don't include enough information about the mattress to make any meaningful comments about it but as you can see in the guidelines here and some of the other information that is included in the mattress shopping tutorial ... I would avoid the major brands completely or any mattress where you aren't able to find out the quality/density of the materials inside it (see this article ).

There is more about the different ways that one mattress can "match" another one in post #9 here but I certainly wouldn't want to "match" the quality or durability of the materials in a Beautyrest (they are generally too low to be a suitable "target" to try and match) and other than the quality and durability of the materials the only reliable way to know whether a mattress is a reasonable approximation of another mattress in terms of comfort and PPP (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief, and Personal preferences) would be based on your own careful testing (hopefully using the testing guidelines in the tutorial) or your personal experience.

I would also suggest avoiding using using a specific mattress as your "target" or reference point because it may not be the best possible match for you in the first place (and you could end up excluding another mattress that may be different but could be a better choice in terms of quality or PPP) and because human memory for softness, firmness, and "feel" is very unreliable and a mattress that may feel similar to what you "remember" another mattress feels like may end up being very different. Instead I would rate every mattress you consider against a common set of criteria (rather than against another mattress) using the testing guidelines in the tutorial post and based on which one is the best "match" for you in terms of PPP and all the other parts of your personal value equation that are most important to you.

Phoenix

First off, thanks a lot for this site and your input, Phoenix.

I have to wonder why/how you put so much effort into your posts, but I'm not complaining. I guess there's a forum for everything!

Around 3-4 years ago I bought a Sealy mattress. It felt pretty great for maybe a year, if that. The pillow top is pretty much flat at this point, and it probably needed replacing at the two year mark.

Sure, there are warranties, but I haven't read good things about the process, and I wasn't interested in duplicating my Sealy experience anyway so I've just decided to just buy something completely different.

Here comes this site and this thread through a Google search. There's apparently a world of mom and pop mattress makers. Who knew?

I've lived in DFW for a couple years now, and decided to check out Mattress Factory in Fort Worth based on this thread. My experience was mixed, unfortunately.

I drove the 30 miles from Dallas to Fort Worth on a Saturday to find the front door locked. A girl named Heather let me in, but I found it pretty strange the front door was locked during business hours, and it didn't exactly make me feel welcome.

I was mainly looking for the Latex mattress they had listed on their site since I've never seen one, but gave their inner spring mattresses a test drive first. I almost fell off the edge. I was very unimpressed by the quality of their spring mattresses. I'm not an expert by any means, but I immediately said no when I sat down on these. Maybe I should have gave them a better chance.

The Latex model they had on the floor was pretty great though. The problem came when I started asking questions. The simplest of which was, "What's inside the mattress?"

The girl pretty much refused to tell me, other than it was "Dunlop latex" and "gel infused memory foam." That didn't really mean anything to me, and after asking several times, I said I'm not going to spend a couple grand without more information. She acted like she wasn't able to acquire this information, even though I could literally see the factory through the window.

I will also say the showroom could have been maintained a lot better. It didn't seem clean and had a lot of clutter, so I was hesitant to lay down on the mattresses in the showroom. I'm not exactly a germophobe, but I am pretty sensitive about where I lay down I guess. (I'm probably a bit more sensitive towards this. I'm a software dev these days, but in a past life I worked retail and retail management and presentation was always a pretty big deal.)

Anyway, I am sorry for rambling. I was wondering if you had any advice on this? I did like the mattress, but I didn't like anything else. The glowing reviews here didn't exactly match my experience.

Maybe I don't even need advice and should just go somewhere else. Do any of these local businesses have something that might be similar to the Latex mattress I tried?

Hi Chris686,

Welcome to the Mattress Forum!

First off, thanks a lot for this site and your input, Phoenix.
I have to wonder why/how you put so much effort into your posts, but I'm not complaining. I guess there's a forum for everything!

You’re welcome. 12-16 hours a day / 365 days a year tends to accumulate quite a bit of material. Not everyone has a passion for their vocation as do I, but I’m happy to be doing it!

I’m sorry your visit didn’t go as smoothly as you had planned to The Mattress Factory. Unfortunately, you’re not providing too much objective information for me to comment upon and I wasn’t there to experience what you did, nor gain experience from the other parties involved, so all I can do is provide you some general comments that I hope will be assistive.

I’m not sure of the reasoning for the door being locked. If you were their first customer on a Saturday, they may have forgot to unlock the front door to the showroom. Or being a working mattress factory they may keep the front door locked if they are short-staffed with sales people on any given day, as everyone will be working in the back. Regardless, I wouldn’t take it too personally, as they certainly want to have customers come and but their mattresses!

As for the innerspring mattress model you tried, you’ve not provided me any information about the actual product, so I couldn’t tell you anything about it. They do produce a wide variety of products, and it’s entirely possible you were trying out a more promotional mattress. Again, without details I couldn’t be more specific in assisting you there.

Regarding getting specifications, that is certainly something you’ll always want to acquire with any mattress purchase. You always want to make sure that you find out the information listed here so you can compare the quality of the materials and components to the durability guidelines here to make sure there are no lower quality materials or weak links in a mattress before making a purchase. As far as the person helping you “pretty much refusing” to tell you what is on the inside, that doesn’t correspond to any of my experiences with Peter or his team, and it sounds more likely you were given more cursory or incomplete information, so I’m wondering if it was someone working in the factory who let you in and perhaps isn’t normally a person working on the showroom floor, as they as a rule tend to be very transparent about what is placed inside of their mattresses. Again, all I can do is speculate as I wasn’t with you, and if I was I would have asked if someone else was available who had more complete information about the product I was considering.

Regarding the showroom, you are visiting a working mattress factory, and I know sometimes these establishments can be a more spartan in their appearance and upkeep.

My best advice would be to place a phone call to the factory and ask to speak with Peter Duncan, the owner, and explain that you visited last week and needed some extra information on the mattress you were considering. I’m sure he’d be able to help you and would also be happy to receive any feedback you had to offer. This is where I purchased my mattress and I’ve always found Peter to be responsive to requests.

I’ll be interested in learning about your progress!

Phoenix

Just found out about the mattress factory after researching mattresses on this site. They are 5 minutes from my work so I'm going to check them out in a few days. Can anyone who has purchased from them give a long term report 3, 5, 8+ years. Specifically, I'd like a review about their latex matresses.

We purchased a Talalay latex mattress from Peter 4 years ago. My wife and I like firm mattresses so our is a 36/36/36 and we love it. We always had a problem with the vertical edge of the mattress sinking some from the weight of sitting on it while dressing. Not so with this mattress so far. Also, we are not experiencing the depression where we lay that we always had with inner spring mattresses. So far so good. We also bought some Talalay pillows for ourselves and for our daughter. We all love them. When the time comes, we will go back to Peter to get a new mattress.

Hi runs100s,

Welcome to the Mattress Forum!

Just found out about the mattress factory after researching mattresses on this site. They are 5 minutes from my work so I'm going to check them out in a few days. Can anyone who has purchased from them give a long term report 3, 5, 8+ years. Specifically, I'd like a review about their latex matresses.

Regarding other people’s reviews, I’ll first provide for you my “standard” disclaimer. While other people's comments about the knowledge and service of a particular business can certainly be very helpful ... I would always keep in mind that you are the only one that can feel what you feel on a mattress and I would be cautious about using anyone else's suggestions, experiences or reviews on a specific mattress (either positive or negative) or review sites in general as a reliable source of information or guidance about how you will feel on the same mattress or how suitable or how durable a mattress may be for you. In many if not most cases they can be more misleading than helpful because a mattress that would be a perfect choice for one person or even a larger group of people in terms of comfort, firmness, and PPP may be completely unsuitable for someone else to sleep on (even if they are in a similar weight range). In other words ... reviews or other people's experiences in general won't tell you much if anything about the suitability, quality, durability, or "value" of a mattress for any particular person (see post #13 here ).

As far as The Mattress Factory goes, they are a site member here, which as I think you know means that I think highly of them, their advice and their componentry. If you do decide to purchase from them, be sure to ask for your Mattress Underground discount. The latex they use is a high quality material (as is most latex), and they are the manufacturer of my mattress , with which I am still very happy. They certainly would be worthy of a visit as you are so close.

Phoenix

Hi mjobtx,

Thank you for taking the time to provide an update on your mattress and for replying to runs100s question. I'm happy that you're still sleeping well on your mattress from The Mattress Factory.

Phoenix