The Story About the Bed
Jun. 6th, 2022 09:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
billroperSeveral years ago (I'm not sure exactly how many), we decided that our previous Select Comfort bed had become long in the tooth and it was time to buy a replacement. Foolishly, we decided to buy another Select Comfort bed.
We had rather liked the previous bed. It turns out that the replacement model was worse in about every possible way. Basically, if you weigh more than the 150 pound models you see in the commercials, you should stay far, far away from these beds.
The older model of bed used a plastic platform as a support. This was moderately sturdy. The new, improved bed hides the pump inside a shell formed of fabric over thin metal rods. Having the pump out of the way is nice. Having a platform that is made of thin, metal, unsupported rods is not.
One of the features of the new bed is "Responsive Air" so that it inflates and deflates depending on where you are applying weight. Seems reasonable. Perhaps it is, unless you sit down on the edge of the bed to put on and tie your shoes, which is the sort of activity that normal human beings engage in. When you do that, if it takes you too long to get your shoes on, the mattress will now deflate beneath you so that your entire weight is trying to be supported by an unsupported thin metal rod which bends, so that now your mattress support is swaybacked. Or, if you are playing this game at home, not so much of a mattress support at all.
We got that replaced under warranty. Then we bought and cut plywood (with the aid of the ubiquitous Sam) to cover the entire mattress support assembly to protect it from the deflating mattress. This worked, to the extent that we haven't destroyed another support, but it means that the mattress is now much firmer than it was designed to be, which is a mixed blessing.
Meanwhile, the air bladders on my side of the bed leaked. We had them replaced once under warranty with some annoying charge. It's not clear *why* they leaked, other than that I am fat, which is something that was obvious when I was standing in the store buying the mattress. They sold it to me anyway, with no warning about it being unsuitable for me to sleep on.
Nevertheless, the air bladders on both sides of the bed continued to leak, more on my side than on Gretchen's. I would pump them up each evening. And if I woke up in the middle of the night to a badly deflated bed, I would pump them up again. This whole "wake up in the middle of the night to fix the bed" thing is tiring.
Entertainingly, the bed would tend to shift so that the mattress would overhang some four inches on my side. When it shifted over, the leaking problem was markedly reduced. No, I couldn't possibly tell you why. We'd just have left it that way, except then the plywood that was protecting the platform support would scrape the back of Gretchen's calves when she got out of bed, which is not exactly pleasant.
There comes a time when one should stop throwing good money after bad and we have passed that point. Thus, we now have a new bed, which is some hybrid of foam and air which we are hoping works well for us. Once we've gone through a few weeks of our trial and have become convinced that we want to keep it, we have a high-end Select Comfort king-sized bed which we will be happy to gift to anyone who would like to haul it away and try it out. We will even include the plywood.
If you are a whole lot lighter than we are, it may work out for you.
Or not.
But, hey! You get to find out for free, which is a lot cheaper than it was for us. :)
We had rather liked the previous bed. It turns out that the replacement model was worse in about every possible way. Basically, if you weigh more than the 150 pound models you see in the commercials, you should stay far, far away from these beds.
The older model of bed used a plastic platform as a support. This was moderately sturdy. The new, improved bed hides the pump inside a shell formed of fabric over thin metal rods. Having the pump out of the way is nice. Having a platform that is made of thin, metal, unsupported rods is not.
One of the features of the new bed is "Responsive Air" so that it inflates and deflates depending on where you are applying weight. Seems reasonable. Perhaps it is, unless you sit down on the edge of the bed to put on and tie your shoes, which is the sort of activity that normal human beings engage in. When you do that, if it takes you too long to get your shoes on, the mattress will now deflate beneath you so that your entire weight is trying to be supported by an unsupported thin metal rod which bends, so that now your mattress support is swaybacked. Or, if you are playing this game at home, not so much of a mattress support at all.
We got that replaced under warranty. Then we bought and cut plywood (with the aid of the ubiquitous Sam) to cover the entire mattress support assembly to protect it from the deflating mattress. This worked, to the extent that we haven't destroyed another support, but it means that the mattress is now much firmer than it was designed to be, which is a mixed blessing.
Meanwhile, the air bladders on my side of the bed leaked. We had them replaced once under warranty with some annoying charge. It's not clear *why* they leaked, other than that I am fat, which is something that was obvious when I was standing in the store buying the mattress. They sold it to me anyway, with no warning about it being unsuitable for me to sleep on.
Nevertheless, the air bladders on both sides of the bed continued to leak, more on my side than on Gretchen's. I would pump them up each evening. And if I woke up in the middle of the night to a badly deflated bed, I would pump them up again. This whole "wake up in the middle of the night to fix the bed" thing is tiring.
Entertainingly, the bed would tend to shift so that the mattress would overhang some four inches on my side. When it shifted over, the leaking problem was markedly reduced. No, I couldn't possibly tell you why. We'd just have left it that way, except then the plywood that was protecting the platform support would scrape the back of Gretchen's calves when she got out of bed, which is not exactly pleasant.
There comes a time when one should stop throwing good money after bad and we have passed that point. Thus, we now have a new bed, which is some hybrid of foam and air which we are hoping works well for us. Once we've gone through a few weeks of our trial and have become convinced that we want to keep it, we have a high-end Select Comfort king-sized bed which we will be happy to gift to anyone who would like to haul it away and try it out. We will even include the plywood.
If you are a whole lot lighter than we are, it may work out for you.
Or not.
But, hey! You get to find out for free, which is a lot cheaper than it was for us. :)