How It’s Made: Latex Mattresses
May 5, 2014, 8:18 AM | Updated: 9:06 am
(Photo courtesy Bedrooms and More)
SPONSORED — “Within the last year and a half,” Blake Garfield from Bedrooms and More says, “Sterns and Foster, Sealy and Tempurpedic became owned by the same private equity firm, so it’s one company that owns all of them.” He says this makes a difference for their warranties. A mattress warranty, he says, is typically an indicator of comfort lifespan. Many of Sealy, Tempurpedic and Sterns and Foster mattresses had 25-year warranties, he says, but people were back in the market for a mattress within 5 years.
“What they’ve done, across the board, is cut all their warranties.” He says there are none that exceed ten years, which is built on the desire to reduce the time people are back in the market for mattresses. “I think it’s going to bring expectations closer to the reality,” he says. “You’re going to get compression with these foams that are used in these mattresses.”
If you’re in the market for a mattress, Blake and his staff swear by latex. So how is a latex mattress made?
Latex comes from a variety of rubber trees; the bark is peeled off of the tree to produce sap, which is harvested to make latex, Blake says.
After the sap is collected, they age the liquid latex. He says this makes it the right consistency to mix with soap to make a latex foam.
After the latex is whipped into a foam, it’s measured into the correct sizes and cooked in an “enormous waffle iron,” he says, which is what makes your mattress.
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