Serta is ‘number one in North America’

Everyone needs a good night’s sleep, but if you’re tired and achy in the mornings you need to look at your mattress.

We spend a third of our lives in bed so comfort should be our number one priority.

If you are tossing and turning in the middle of the night, it may be time to replace the mattress.

At Big Savings Zone in St David’s, the only brand the company stocks is Serta, which claims to make ‘the world’s best mattress’.

Products by this North American manufacturer have a 10-year warranty against defects.

Coil count

When it comes to choosing a mattress, customers should always consider how they feel when lying down on a mattress.

Support comes from the spring, with the mattress’s filling determining its hardness or softness.

The two main types of mattress are spring or memory foam. Spring can be either open sprung or pocket sprung, and memory foam can be either viscofoam or latex foam.

There are also differences in firmness and plushness. Or, pick a hybrid product, such as a spring mattress with latex foam pillowtop layers.

Coil count, or the number of turns the steel makes, determines the strength and support of a spring mattress.

Alan Mayne, Big Savings Zone owner, said: “Serta uses the continuous coil. If you stretch it out, it’s three football fields in length.”

The material is high tensile steel re-fired for strength and resiliency. The coils resist the body’s downward motion with a counteractive upward or supportive motion.

In an open-sprung mattress the continuous coils are open all the way around, while in a pocket-sprung mattress, individual coils are secreted in individual pockets or bags.

A pocket-sprung mattress is not recommended for heavier people, said Mr Mayne.

“The individual coils can’t handle excessive weight. The springs tend to stay down. They don’t spring back again for the support, and the little bags that the individual coils are in have a tendency to tear.” 

The springs part as the bags tear, causing a dip in the mattress and lumpiness. Mr Mayne said Big Savings Zone doesn’t offer pocket sprung systems for this reason.

Serta’s open sprung (continuous coil) mattresses are available in various styles and sizes.

Memory foam is currently the second-most sought-after category of mattress.

Mr Mayne said:  “We have customers that come in and all they want is a memory foam bed… They just have to have it. They don’t even want to look at a sprung bed.”

Some memory foam mattresses on the market can retain body heat. Other complaints are that the depth of impression makes it hard to turn over, but Serta has a trademark system to prevent this.

Mr Mayne said: “Serta has developed a gel capsule system whereby the capsules are injected into the foam.

“They pull body heat away from the body and disperse it through and out of the mattress, and these capsules also add to the support system. This helps the mattress to breathe better, too.”

Memory foam comes in viscofoam, a petroleum product, or latex foam, a natural rubber product.

Big Savings Zone has the Serta iComfort Memory Foam gel mattress in four various levels of firmness. The iComfort is a viscofoam, with the queen size selling for $2,995 for mattress and boxspring.

The Stewart Ridge is a hybrid and is known as a Perfect Sleeper. Its top-of-the-line coil mattress comes with or without a latex memory foam pillowtop. A queen size sells for $2,355 for the mattress and boxspring.

While boxsprings are the normal support for coil mattresses, memory foam mattresses usually need a firmer foundation. Such a foundation for a queen size mattress costs about $400 at Big Savings Zone.

The store stocks all three Serta levels of hardness/softness — Firm, Pillow Soft and Super Pillowtop.

Mr Mayne said: “We back Serta 100 per cent. If you buy a mattress from us and then get it home and find it uncomfortable to sleep on, we’ll change it and find the comfort level you need.”

Robert Vosper, floor manager, said: “Serta has become the number one manufacturer for bedding in North America. It sells more mattresses in America than either Sealy or Simmons, so we are proud of the fact that the mattresses we sell are number one.

“We have two top-of-the-line Perfect Sleepers. They are very comfortable, with a double-spring system. One is very firm like a plush mattress and the other has a pillowtop.

“And we have our two memory foam iComfort mattresses, which have a cool gel system between the layers. They’re expensive but last a long time. They conform to your body.

“Then we have our more affordable types. The other Serta mattresses we have are Firm and Plush.

“At Big Savings Zone we are the number one furniture store in Bermuda — we won the 2012 Best of Bermuda Award for Best Furniture Store, so come and visit us.”

Big Savings Zone, 16 Waller’s Point Road, Southside, St David’s. See www.bigsavingszone.com or call 297-4440.