Help us fix Foam Mattress Mountain!

December 31, 2016 10:32 AM

A little under five years ago, my partner and I bought a high-end foam mattress. It was great...until this year. Each side of the mattress now has a roughly body-shaped depression in it, with a ridge between the two. It's putting both our bodies out of whack. How do we fix this? A few more details inside.

We are both in the 180-200lb range.

The mattress is queen size, so we can only sleep in one direction on it. We've turned the mattress around (so our heads are where the feet were), but it's a pillowtop so we can't flip it over onto the other side. We've also swapped sides, which helped a bit for about two months.

My partner slept in the middle of the mattress while I was out of town for two weeks, and that temporarily reduced the ridge in the middle, but after I'd been home for a week we were back to our old issue.

Foam mattress guarantees don't generally kick in until the concavity reaches one inch. It's not that deep yet, but our backs are not going to survive another half inch.

Are foam mattresses just a bad idea for people of size? Should we put another pillowtop on top of the existing pillowtop? Have you successfully resolved this issue?

posted by rednikki to Home & Garden (5 answers total)

I've experienced the issue you speak of before, and ended up replacing the mattress (though a topper did help for a little while), but a few thoughts occurred to me while reading your question:

• You said that your partner slept in the middle and it helped flatted out the ridge - maybe if you place something approximately the same weight as one of your bodies on the ridge during the day it would have a similar effect? A board with some weight distributed along it's length?
• I've seeen people refresh depressed foam with steam, but not seen this applied to memory foam - maybe it would help a bit to try using a clothing steamer or iron to steam the foam? I'd imagine this would be time consuming and difficult though. It would be important to let all of the moisture evaporate as well.
• What is the exact construction of your mattress? It may be possible to cut it open and remove the sagging layer, then replace it with a similar topper and cover the modifications with a mattress cover/protector. I've done this before with two queen pocket springs in order to make an extra-large mattress, and while it was a pita, it did work very well. Just replacing a single layer should be much easier depending on the mattress's construction.
• You might also try flipping the mattress over (pillowtop side down) and using a mattress pad on to of it. It won't be as nice as the original mattress but it might be better than your current situation. If it's decent then you could try cutting the pillowtop off and placing it on the other side.

That's all I got. Good luck!
posted by Th!nk at 10:55 AM on December 31, 2016

Same thing happened with ours. Two permanent body-shaped depressions. We returned it and they gave us another (under a 10-year guarantee). Same thing happened again after a couple of years, so we gave up on the foam and went for a pocket spring mattress, which is much better so far.
posted by pipeski at 1:46 PM on December 31, 2016

A little left field, and certainly not guaranteed to work, but consider flipping the mattress and buying a topper for the bottom. You would basically be adding the pillow top that the bottom doesn't currently have. After six months or so lying on its top, the foam may even out and you can flip it again.
posted by cnc at 2:40 PM on December 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

Not that I'm suggesting this, but considering the warranty restriction isn't really fit for purpose, some people might be tempted to put heavy weights onto the existing depressions until they reach 1 inch concavity and then return the mattress. It seems the warranty is very unfair if you're expected to hurt yourself to meet the requirements.
posted by hazyjane at 2:02 AM on January 1, 2017 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: We wound up getting a Leesa. It's working out well so far!
posted by rednikki at 9:25 PM on January 30, 2017