A recent reader of the Sleep Doctor Blog recently asked, "Can I safely bend my mattress in half to move it into another room?"

Mattresses can be difficult to move, particularly traditional mattresses made with steel coils. The first mattresses made with steel coils employed what is called a "continuous" or "Bonnell" coil unit, where are the steel coils were connected with wire. This made for a heavy and springy mattress, and also makes it difficult to move. While many companies have since moved on from that design due to comfort and weight issues, some companies still use that old fashioned and outdated design, such as McRoskey Mattress in San Francisco and some models of Sealy and Serta. This type of mattress is built with a border rod, a strong, continuous wire that frames the entire mattress. Bending or folding this type of mattress in any manner would result in damage to the mattress which could leave it unusable and would void the warranty.

If you have a pocketed coil construction mattress, such as a Simmons Beautyrest mattress, depending on the construction of the mattress it may be possible to move this type of mattress. Some of these models have no border rod or a flexible border rod which would allow you to bend and manipulate the mattress. There is high density foam and memory foam in many of these types of mattresses and folding them would not damage the foam. If you do fold the mattress or bend it, it would be advisable to only to it for a short amount of time.

If you have a solid foam, memory foam mattress or solid latex mattress, these types of mattresses can safely be manipulated to bend or fold to accommodate a move. Typically these types of mattresses have layers of foam, whether it be memory foam or latex foam, and those layers of foam are either glued together or stacked without adhesives. If there are no adhesives, it is possible your layers could shift and the mattress could be a bit disfigured, in which case it could appear you have damaged it. Some of these types of beds have zippered covers, which would allow you to open the mattress and rearrange the layers. These are how the latex mattresses at Nest Bedding are constructed.

If you have a specific situation not covered here, please feel free to write us here at the Sleep Doctor at Nest Bedding.