Composite mattress

A composite or combination mattress is a mattress that combines two or more materials or forms of construction that are normally used to make a single material mattress.

A very obvious and popular example is to mix springs and foam by having a mattress where the lower section is composed of pocket springs and where the upper section is a layer of visco elastic memory foam.

What is the advantage of a composite or combination mattress?

The advantage of mixing two different mattress constructions is that you can enjoy the best properties of each material.

Again, taking the example of springs and memory foam - the springs offer the traditional springy bouncy mattress feel whilst the memory foam provides the contouring or body cradling effect that is considered to be an important feature of an orthopedic mattress. This means that by using two mattress constructions in a single bed it is possible to combine the support advantages of modern foams with the more natural feel of springs.

Not surprisingly composite type mattresses are generally more expensive than standard single material mattresses and this is because their production has to include the processes normally found in two different beds. Even so, the prices of these multi material mattress products are falling and now they are often found in mid price ranges. Many modern orthopedic mattresses are composite mattresses mixing springs and memory foam or latex foam.

Combination foam mattress

In addition to composite mattresses made from different materials and types of construction, you can also get a single material mattress that uses different layers of the same material. When this is the case the alternating layers provide different characteristics. The best example of this is the visco elastic memory foam mattress.

Most of the cheaper memory foam mattress products are made from a single block of foam where the density and performance of the foam is consistent throughout. However, with the more expensive memory foam mattresses multiple layers of different density foam are often used.

The advantage of constructing a foam mattress from different foam layers is that each layer can be used for a different function. This normally sees the highest density foam at the bottom of the mattress, where it forms the base, with progressively softer (lower density) foams being used nearer the top.

The reason for this is that, the lower density foams are firstly more flexible and compress and mould to the body more. Secondly, they have more air in them and this makes them better at ventilating heat out of the mattress. Some multi layer memory foam mattresses even go as far as to describe one of their layers as a ventilation layer.

How good are combination mattress products

In the case of the spring and foam mattress, spring based mattresses have always used a layer of foam or wadding between the spring box and the top surface of the bed. The addition of memory foam or latex foam as a replacement for standard foam or wadding is not therefore that bigger change, but it does improve the body shaping ability of the bed.

This page will give you a comparison of a composite bed and a memory foam bed.