How Many Coils Is Enough?

Pardon me, but I come at this from the point of view that unlike a CNN expert; which is anybody who is on their side at that moment; I am a real expert in the mattress business. I started in this business 30 years ago as a delivery driver, I moved up to sales and then management and then owned my own company selling "Sleep", which I have been doing now for 30 years. I’ve competed against all the largest retailers in Canada many that do now not exist any more and for the most part if the consumer is listening, I win and If I win: they win too.

I have seen every phony sale and every trick in this business over the 30 years that I have spent trying to make a living making the mattress industry more understood by the consumer. Have you ever seen the Facebook posts about. Is there ever a day mattresses are not on sale?

Today I want to talk about coil counts and foam qualities.

I like drawing comparisons between cars and food to paint pictures about what is real and what makes it easy for someone with no knowledge of sleep or mattresses on the sales and retail floor to sell a consumer with no knowledge about what makes a good mattress.

I interviewed one of the top salespeople from one of my competitors once, and he said HE did not know about mattress construction and got no teaching on it from any the mattress reps he had ever come in contact with. “We don't talk that way” was his response, “feel, deal, financing, free delivery, price, maybe coil count and that's it?" No interest no understanding of foam qualities and weight of foam at all. Its too complicated the customer is not interested and if they are we send them to you because they are the rarity.

So here we go. Coil counts. How many coils is enough?

Let's face it, steel is way cheaper than foam but steel lasts longer than foam. I don't think I have a lot of convincing to do there.

Let's say you're buying a car, and all the cars have different names and all the cars have different colors and no two vehicles on any two lots are the same. And let's say you want to buy a car to take you to work and to buy groceries and you care about gas mileage. So I offer you 180-horsepower and leather seats and a Bose stereo. Lovely car to do what’s described above. Not a pleasant vehicle to tow a boat but you don't own a boat. So next place you go they give you 300 horsepower cloth seats and a factory deck.

That’s the mattress business, but you don’t see the switch. Like you see in this example. You see if your inexpensive couch falls apart nine times out of 10 it's the foam cushions that fall apart. It's not the frame. In a mattress, it’s the same, cheap mattresses have larger coil counts and less expensive foams. In our society, most people believe instinctively that more is better, and nowhere is this taken advantage of more than in the mattress business.

800 coils at my store with 1 inch of Talalay latex and 1 inch of 4 lb.SpaceFoam and at the competitor 1100 coils and no foams over 1.35 lbs per sq. Foot. The mattress with the higher coil count falls apart much sooner than the lower coil count.

You have a motor that’s big and cheap seats and a cheap stereo but hey 1100 is better than 800, and that’s how it's done. Now I serve 250,300 even 400,500 lbs clients every month. Here is where lots of steel, lots of coils, in a mattress makes all the difference in the world; but only if the foam quality is high as well. Replacing height in a bed with sheets of Micro coils is great, but anytime there is cheap foam in a mattress; the whole thing falls apart no matter how many coils are in it. So you need both, lots of coils and good foam or you need 800 coils and good quality foam. Lots of coils and cheap foam is a lousy mattress that looks good.

It’s always about the quality of the foam on top of springs, and if you can understand this simple statement, you will pay less for a mattress, sleep better and be far more comfortable for much longer in your new purchase than if you play the coil count game that most retailers want to play.

So to finish because this is a blog and not a university paper.

Steel costs less than foam; and Steel is stronger and lasts longer than foam. So if your mattress is built like our top end Restonic Elite line with 5120 coils in it and 2 inches of 4 lb per square foot natural latex, your new mattress will last for its intended warranty period.

But IF you have the same amount of coils and 4 inches of 1.35 lb per square foot convoluted foam; the coils wont help you at all.

Have you ever heard the saying my springs sagged, well they didn’t, they never have: unless you stand on them always to change your light bulbs or your kids really do act like on some hotel commercial ads; coils do not sag, foam sags, and that’s my point, and that’s how you will save money on your next purchase and won't get taken in by phony sales by salespeople who don't want to talk about how a bed is made because they don't know either.

So the steps to finding a good bed are:

1. Find one that feels good to you at a price you can afford.
2. Have the salesperson give you the same info his or her boss got when they bought the mattress from the factory. The ingredient list, the spec sheet. Make the sales person give it to you or don't buy from them. They will fight you but people who persist get the info they need to make a proper decision.
3. Compare this spec sheet to another at another store and buy from the company that gives you the best foams and the highest coil counts for your money.

"One Last Thing"

People always say “all I care about is how it feels” Great me too. No one buys a bed they don't like how it initially feels. BUT you need to care about how long it will feel the way it feels in the store, once you've bought it and that again is not what my competitors want to talk about. “My bed is way harder or way softer than when I bought it” 6 months or 2 years ago" is not a warranted problem.

People ask me all the time why did my mattress from the Stone or Sleeping Beauty only last 3 years. The simple answer is because you did not buy a mattress there, you bought a deal.

If you want your bed to feel the way it feels in the store for many years you have to buy an excellent foam package you have to take 10 extra minutes that's all and buy right the first time. You have to buy a top end foam package on top of your coils not a lousy foam package on top of your 1100 or 2300 or 5120 coil mattress.

The simple truth is steel is cheaper than foam and therefore trading coils for foam is what the majority of retailers and manufacturers want to do. We want to sell you the right combination of both. "Come Find Us” Read our Google reviews, look at our BBB ratings, and our Awards.

Read the rest of my blogs and videos to save money on your next mattress purchase.

Visit our Sleep Super Centre at 953 St. James Street or Call 1-800-383-7755 or 204-837-7330 or chat for more information.