What To Do When Your Mattress Is Sagging

Is Your Mattress Sagging?

Mattress sagging is a widespread problem, especially if you have a ‘can’t flip’ mattress. At our bedrooms store in Seattle, we sell only 2-sided, flippable mattresses. Because you can flip and rotate them, allowing the materials to wear more evenly over time, they last up to 3 times as long as one-sided mattresses.

When we deliver new mattresses to our customers, we usually take away their old (saggy) one. (Not so) shockingly, many of these mattresses are under 5 years or even 3 years old — and they weren’t inexpensive to begin with! This is due to planned obsolescence on the part of the mattress industry, but that’s another story for another time.

If your mattress (Not purchased from us) is sagging, chances are one of 5 things is happening:

1. Your mattress is old and needs to be replaced. All mattress materials degrade over time, and it may simply be that the time is up for your mattress.
2. Your mattress is fairly new (maybe just a few years old), but is made with trendy materials (memory foam, gel foam, poly foam) that wear out quickly — even if you paid a lot for it and it was sold to you as having ‘luxury’ materials.
3. The mattress is one-sided — when you can’t flip your mattress, one side has to take all the body impressions, and that means it becomes a sinkhole.
4. Your mattress is two-sided, “middle aged” or older (7+ years), and hasn’t been flipped/rotated regularly — even a two-sided mattress needs basic maintenance, and without it, its performance will suffer.
5. The surface your mattress is resting on is not flat. Read on to learn more about how to diagnose and fix this problem!

Two notable features of our two-sided, flippable mattresses are their durability and consistency in surface feel. However, very occasionally, a customer will report that a mattress purchased from us seems to be sagging. WHY? Keep reading to find out.

If you did purchase your mattress from us, here’s what may be going on:

When we go out on a service call for this issue, 80% of the time the mattress isn’t the problem. Usually, it’s the foundation the mattress is resting on. The first thing we do is get down on the floor and inspect this foundation, whether it’s a box (sometimes called a box spring), a platform bed, a Cabinet Bed, or some other type of bed frame.

Why do we start by looking underneath the mattress? Because foundation problems telegraph through to the sleep surface. If your foundation underneath your mattress is unstable, the mattress will sag!

We check for things like broken, cracked, missing or loose platform bed slats; missing, broken, or inadequate legs under the frame, or a box that is bulging, sagging, or simply worn out. A quick test is to put the mattress on the floor and see if it’s flat. If it’s flat when placed on the floor, then the mattress is not the problem.

Mattress Insider 101:

There are no magic mattress materials. Over the years, all mattresses will develop impressions where individuals sleep. You probably won’t notice as much of an impression down the center of the bed — “no man’s land” — where no one sleeps. The older the mattress, the more normal wear and tear you’ll see. Mattress composition will also affect impressions and sag. For example, a gel or memory foam/polyurethane mattress (or one with gel or memory/polyurethane foam layers), or a cheaply made spring mattress, is subject to wear out/sag/degrade much more quickly and noticeably than a botanical latex mattress.

We only sell high quality two-sided mattresses because they’re flippable and designed to last. When properly maintained on a regular schedule with flipping and rotating three to four times a year, our mattresses will outlast others.

A stable foundation and proper mattress maintenance, plus choosing a good quality two-sided mattress from the beginning, are the best ways to get the longest life possible from your sleep surface.

Sleep Sag-free with a 2-Sided Mattress

A 2-sided mattress you can flip and rotate will last up to 3 times as long as a ‘can’t flip’ single sided model. If you want longevity, comfort, and durability for years to come, start shopping for a mattress here!