Mattress Springs and Coils

1. Bonnell. A mattress spring shaped as most of us would picture in our minds a mattress coil should look like. A rounded at the top and bottom coil. The springs are then connected together by a spiral wire called a helix wire from side to side. This type of unit is used only in the low end mattresses, sofa bed mattresses and innerspring futons.

2. Offset. This mattress coil unit is the same as the bonnell with the difference being the top and bottom have two flat sides to allow more turns of the helical wire to attach to the mattress spring making the unit stronger and preventing the mattress coil from turning. The helical wire also helps spread weight across more coils. Now that mattresses aren't padded on both sides and can no longer be flipped or turned over mattresses with coils that the turns are opposite each other in every two rows of coils will lean less helping reduce the body impression problem. These are called facing coils or car coil and can be found in king Koil or Spring Air .Sealy uses coils that face the same direction that wasn't a problem when beds were two sided.

3. Continues Wire. This is a system where the innerspring is made from one piece of wire runs through the entire innerspring. The wire is bent to equal a three turn coil. The rows are then connected by a helical wire making the unit a true mesh.

4. Marshall unit. This unit is built without a helical wire. The coils are wrapped with cloth to keep them from rubbing together making noise. Some use a precompressed coil to give it strength and longer acting spring action. This type of unit works better in the one sided configuration than in the two sided mattress. There is also an individually wrapped system called the cable coil system this is where each coil is made up of three strands of wire twisted together to make one piece the coil is four time stronger than a normal coil.

Mattress coils come in different gauges, usually between 12.5 and 16. The lower the number the thicker the wire. Mattress springs have between three and six turns.

How to Buy a Mattress

Mattress retailers have a reputation for using questionable sales practices. Learn what matters and doesn’t matter in mattress construction.

1. Firmness – test out the mattress to make sure it feels comfortable.

2. Construction – learn about how the mattress is made. More expensive mattresses typically have damask ticking, thicker padding, higher coil counts, and a cushion sewn into the mattress. Coil count and configuration seem to have little effect. Sagging in mattresses is caused by the padding, not the coils. Therefore, when comparing mattresses look at for thicker, higher quality padding.

Types:

1. Innerspring Mattress – a mattress with coiled metal springs layered between sheets of padding.

2. Other Bedding - Foam Mattresses, Featherbed , Futons, and Waterbeds.

The focus of this article is on innerspring mattresses.

Attributes:

1. Size – Chose a smaller bed if your room is not large enough to accommodate a large bed.

2. Construction – Different levels of durability and performance can be determined by different construction techniques.

Construction attributes:

1. Ticking - Vinyl is used on the cheaper mattresses.

2. Quilting and top padding – Most mattresses have a few layers of padding attached to the ticking.

3. Coil count – A premium full-size unit will have 400 coils, a low end might have 312 coils.

4. Handles – Most include handles for use when positioning the mattress.

5. Box spring – Provides extra softness and comfort.

Where to buy mattress:

1. Brick-and-Mortar Stores – includes department stores, chains, and boutiques. Allow you to test the mattress out, but require a significant time investment to comparison shop.

2. Mattresses by phone companies – more convenient than brick-and-mortar stores, but can be slippery on pricing and returns.

3. Internet – offer low prices, but you can’t test the mattress before you buy.

Marketing tactics:

1. Bait and switch advertisement – some stores use ads for cheap mattresses to get you to the store.

2. Questionable pricing – Stores list prices that nobody ever pays, discount prices that are open for further discounting with negotiation.

Mattress Coils

When considering the core of an innerspring mattress, there are a number of important factors:

1. The number of coils used throughout the mattress.

A typical mattress contains between 250 and 1,000 coil springs. A mattress with a lower coil count might use thicker wire to compensate for this.

2. The way the coils are constructed.

a. Gauge:

When discussing the coils of an innerspring mattress, the word "gauge" refers to the thickness of the wire used to construct the coil.

b. Working turns:

Another important factor is the number of "working turns" in each coil, a measurement of how tightly the coil is wound.

c. Tempering:

Tempering is the process of heating and cooling the coils to ensure they retain their proper shape over time.

3. The shape of the coils.

There are three main coil designs used in modern mattresses:

a. Hourglass.

Hourglass coils, the most commonly used design, come in two varieties — Bonnell coils and Offset coils. Today, Bonnell coils are still the most prevalent coils in the mattress industry, though they are typically found in less expensive mattresses.

b. Pocketed.

Pocketed coils, also known as Marshall coils, are each individually wrapped in a fabric pocket. On the flip side, pocketed coils endure greater strain over time, since each coil absorbs weight without distributing it to other nearby coils. Simmons uses pocketed coils in most of their innerspring mattresses.

c. Continuous.

Continuous coil designs allow for significantly more coils per mattress, making it difficult to compare coil counts with non-continuous coil systems.