Mattress Expert Shares Best Way To Store A Mattress

Tips and Tricks That Will Protect Your Mattress In Storage

If you are about to move and store your mattress and boxspring you will not want to miss this interview with Campbell Mattress Executive Vice President Greg Sammons. He explains the best ways to store your bed including tips that could keep you from ruining your investment and your night of sleep.

Storage unit as it became fuller Photo by Jarrod Lombardo

Doug– First of all, thank you for sitting down with us to answer a few questions that we commonly get from our customers. As you know sometimes people have to place their beds into storage and they are always concerned about the potential damage that could possibly happen if not stored properly, after all a mattress is a big investment. So Greg does it cause damage to the mattress if it sits in storage and is not used? Do you find problems with the material falling apart or anything like that?

Greg- Yes there can be storage issues. I think in the long term you’ll have to think about humidity.  For safekeeping, you will want to store it in a heavy-duty plastic bag with micro holes so that the mattress can breathe. I think a major concern is the temperature and humidity of the environment it is being stored, but for your question see to it that it lies flat for longer periods of time while in storage. Laying it on it’s side short term won’t do any damage but for the long term there is real potential for issues.

Doug- You mentioned heat, do you find that the foam and upholstery are vulnerable to harsh weather conditions like cold or heat?

Greg- If you’re going to take it from a cold environment to a warmer one let it have time to heat up and acclimate to room temperature.  The foam reacts to your body heat and it’s going to feel like a brick till it gets to room temperature especially in the case of memory foam products. The storage of it not so much.

Doug- You mentioned humidity; are there any problems with storing a mattress in cardboard?

Greg- Cardboard can offer great protection to a mattress while in storage. Many of the mattress we ship for you and our other customers are well protected in heavy-duty plastic bags and then boxed keeping them protected during transport by shipping companies all over the country. My concern with cardboard is only in damp environments. As I said we ship many of our mattresses in boxes, but cardboard is a material that can and does absorb water so dry storage is crucial.

Doug- Greg where do you think is the ideal place is to store a mattress? People seem to keep them in all kinds of different places storage units, garages, climate control storage units, warehouses, attics, and the list goes on. Personally we like the idea of climate-controlled environments how about you?

Greg- Yeah I think you’re right on with that. Dark and damp is a recipe for a mushroom farm (laughing) if you know what I mean? You’re going to have issues with mold and mildew that could ruin your mattress set.

Doug- Greg so here it is the most asked question we get asked.

What is the “best position” to put the mattress in when storing it?

People are very concerned that one storage position favors another. Some people think laying it flat is better, others say on their side, and some say you can place them standing on end. What are your thoughts?

Greg- I’d rather see the mattress lay flat. I mean that’s the way the mattress is built and that’s the way they are meant to be slept on.  Short term you can lay it on its side and this is for the consumer, not the warehouse.  Ideally, I guess if you’re going to have it vertical, you can compress the two together and have something that holds them together like a sandwich. The reason is gravity can cause shifting of the raw materials. (padding) The biggest problem you got in today’s world is the migration factors from heavy Visco foams gel foams or even latex.  They lay atop some of the other foam products and the effects of gravity weight them down causing them to shift out of position.

Doug- Are those layers that you speak of usually quilted up in the surface Greg?

Greg- No a lot of time we are talking about two inches of memory or two inches of gel even two inches of latex and they are just heavier materials than the quilted layering that is on top of it.

Doug- So they can’t shift out of position and buckle just like an old baffled waterbed mattress?

Greg- Yes gravity is going to drag it down. They’re heavier so at some point you’re going to get this pinching spot and that is why laying a mattress down flat is better. You don’t want gravity working against it, that is why I suggested earlier if you must stand the mattress on its end or side you pancake or sandwich the mattress and box spring together tight so the layering is supported. Think of it like bookends for a mattress.  You are fighting migration on the materials from gravity. And another thing pocketed coils are especially vulnerable due to their extreme weight. Pocket coils, in particular, are going to have more of that bowing effect than a standard open-end coil system that uses helical wires that connects and holds them stable. At Campbell, we go out of our way when it comes to pocket coils to glue almost every layer which most people have given up on because the cost prohibits it.  This is the primary reason why we do a lot of the gluing of the layers, coils, and we glue inside the tub.  Pocket coils due to their design become more floppy even making a mattress hard to carry.

One more thing I would like to mention to people that are thinking about storing mattresses. When moving them please be careful. Mattresses can be quite heavy and you can hurt yourself if you do not know how to lift properly or damage the mattress. I suggest hiring a professional mover. They can take care of the proper packaging for preparation of storage and should know how to handle the mattress warding off potential damage. They should be able to place your mattress in proper climate-controlled storage until you are ready to put it back into daily use.