Bed time.

[mm1]

Hi all,does anyone have experience of memory foam & or sprung mattreses,i.e. do they work & are they worth the money. we hope to spend a little more time on our boat & i think it may be a good investment & kinder to my back,regards mm1.

 

[nimbusgb]

We invested in a Tempur mattress at home a couple of years ago ( 150mm high density foam plus 50mm memory foam ) . Best investment I have made in a long time. I will be upgrading the boat to match in the future ( but using a 150mm thickness mattress )

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

We tried a Tempur mattress at home and I hated it. I know it's supposed to support your body but I found it too hard and, on hot nights, it's sweaty. IMHO, a good quality sprung mattress is the way to go. We have an original fitment sprung mattress on our boat and it's wonderfully supportive

 

[bigfish]

I think the memory foam mattress is like Marmite - you either love it or hate it!

For me I did not like them, as I prefer to sleep on the mattress not in the mattress. Having just upgraded, I went for a thicker mattress with more springs, much more comfortable for me and my back.

I guess its just personal preference.

 

[DAKA]

If you do a search or pm wiggo, he posted details how to DIY ,fit a standard sprung mattress into a v berth mattress.

 

[mm1]

thanks everybody,food for thought & will try the wiggo thing,mm1.

 

[PRH]

Daka,

Just looked through Wiggos's posts, can't find anything - any ideas?

 

[DAKA]

There is a bit here http://www.ybw.com/forums/printthread.php/Board/mby/main/1704275/type/post

Perhaps pm wiggo to see if he saved the main thread ?

 

[PRH]

Thanks, have sent him a PM......

 

[zt260]

I have a 50mm memory foam topper on top of the boat mattress and then a mattress topper on that, and it has made for a better nights sleep and well worth the money,if you have a foam company near you they will probably cut you one,
good luck

ash

 

[PRH]

Yep tried the memory foam and mattress topper route - much better but still too firm for us.....

 

[Wiggo]

DIY sprung mattresses

Apologies for this being a bit PBO, but a couple of folks have asked for the reprint...

Wiggo’s Cheapo Sprung Mattress Technique

Like many, we got fed up with a rock hard foam mattress and the uncomfortable nights it gave us. The first step was to get a mattress topper from IKEA. This cost about £60 or so (from memory) and was a kapok filled thing a couple of inches thick. We brought the foam base home and SWMBO used it as a template to cut the topper to shape. All pretty straightforward, but a little bit fiddly to sew the edges back together. Certainly more comfortable, but not the improvement we hoped for.

So plan B was to try a fully sprung mattress. IKEA was the starting point as they sell dirt cheap ones – a Sultan double mattress was £100, and I could pick one up there and then. I figured the worst that could happen was I’d end up taking £100 of trashed mattress to the tip, so I thought I’d give it a go.

The mattress is a pretty soft one, with a grey zip off cover. Removing the cover reveals that the cover itself is slightly padded, and just covers a foam box. This part is simply six pieces of 1.5” thick foam glued together to enclose the spring core. The foam just pulls apart, as the glue is not strong. So here’s what to do.

Peel off the top layer of foam, as well as the sides and bottom end, and put them to one side. Lay your existing foam mattress on top to work out which bits of spring need removing. The springs are connected together with spiral wires: to remove a spring, just cut the spiral wire with a big pair of wire cutters and ‘wind’ the spiral bit out to the side. The spring then lifts out easily. Remove all the unwanted springs, being careful of the cut ends of the spiral bits, as these will be very sharp. If you can, bend them back on themselves with pliers so that there are no sticky-out surprises.

At this point, you will have a spring core that is more or less the right shape for your bed, but probably with jagged edges. I chose to fill these in with some of the surplus springs so the edges of the mattress didn’t end up with any collapsing bits. The springs were just fastened in place with tie-wraps. Now the spring core is done, it’s a simple matter to trim the top and bottom foam sheets to shape and re-glue the edges with Evo-Stik, remembering that you will have some edge material left over. Finally, glue the top sheet of foam back on.

The final part of the job is to trim the mattress cover. This requires you to unpick the seams, remove the excess edge material and shape the top and bottom and sew the thing back together. If you are lucky, you won’t have to touch the zip at the head end, otherwise that will need to be removed and refitted. All that remains is to wrestle the foam part back inside the cover and zip it up.

For boats with a cave locker under the berth (like ours and the F43), I did think about trying to put some sort of hinge in the middle but didn’t bother in the end. The resulting mattress is light enough to lift easily, and soft enough to bend in the middle without needing a hinge. If you need full access to the locker, the mattress folds in half and stays folded under the weight of a duvet. With the old mattress topper on as well, SWMBO says she gets a better night’s sleep on board than she does at home...

 

[PRH]

Re: DIY sprung mattresses

Wiggo - Thank you....