What Is the Best Type of Innerspring Mattress?

Today, there are many different types of innerspring mattresses on the market, so choosing a good quality mattress isn't straightforward. For starters, there are five different types of innerspring designs. Knowing what these are and what materials go into making an innerspring mattress, will help you find the right innerspring mattress for you.

Over 90% of mattresses sold are innerspring mattresses. Manufacturers of top rated mattresses like Serta, Jamison and Kingsdown Mattresses all make innerspring mattresses. So, there's a range of good quality innerspring mattresses to choose from.

Two good methods to determining quality is to ask the sales assistant and by looking at the mattress cutaway sample of the mattress - each mattress manufacturer provides its retailers with a cross-section sample as a guide for potential customers. Okay, so you're looking at the cutaway, but what exactly are you looking at? Quality innerspring (called coils) are usually tempered with heat or electricity.

Doing this makes the coils more likely to return to their original shape. Most quality coils are coated with plastic to resist corrosion and wear. Generally, the thicker the metal, the firmer the support and the longer the coils will last.

The higher the gauge number, the thinner the wire. Most quality mattress manufacturers like Kingsdown use a 13 gauge wire. There are five different types of coil systems used in mattresses: Continuous, Karr, Marshall, Knotted Bonnell and Knotted Offset.

A continuous coil system is fashioned from a single strand of steel wire strung throughout the system. This system gives a mattress a lot of strength. The Karr systems consists hour-glass shaped coils with the end left unknotted.

The main advantage of Karr coils is that each coil moves independently. The Marshall system uses very light wire. This is because this system uses a lot of coils.

This system is prohibitively expensive and is rarely used in mattresses made today. The knotted Bonnel system, like the Karr, consists of hour-glass shaped coils, but each coil has five turns. The Knotted offset is similar to the Bonnell but the difference comes in that part of the top and bottom wire sections are squared off to fit together in a parallel fashion on the top surface.

This helps prevents the mattress from sagging. Coil count is not necessarily a good indication that one mattress is better than another. Stearns and Foster make some of the finest mattresses on the market today but typically use less coils than other leading mattress manufacturers.

However, most quality mattresses use somewhere between 700 and 1000 coils. Just about all the major mattress manufacturers now apply a soft top to their innerspring mattresses. This top layer can consist of upholstery, latex or memory foam.

This layer can be 1 to 3 inches thick. It is this top layer that gives an innerspring mattress its soft feel, while the coils below give the support. One final point: when you lie down or sit on a mattress you shouldn't feel any coils.

A quality mattress from a leading mattress manufacturer like Kingsdown should feel firm but giving and should give your spine, pelvis and shoulders the support they need in order for you to get a good night's sleep.