Select Comfort 5000 Series + Dual Heated Mattress Pad = Bliss!!
Written: Oct 05 '03
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Pros: Dual Adjustable Comfort Zones, Dual Adjustable Heat, Easy Installation, Very Comfortable, Worth Every Penny!
Cons: None
The Bottom Line: Everyone should buy this bed because it provides whatever firmness level each partner wants, is very durable, easy to install, and is very comfortable. It is expensive but worth it.
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| svt_amateur's Full Review: Select Comfort Mattress Sleep Number 5000 |
This is my buying story on our bed and mattress. I know it is long but it does offer comparisons to other mattresses that I researched and why we selected the Select Comfort 5000, and everything we have experienced with the bed (including setup, sleep, quality of parts, etc.)
Before I start, I would like to say that just because this product has many bad reviews doesn't mean much. I'm not discrediting those people that had a bad experience with Select Comfort, but that people that usually have a good experience don't post about it as much as people with bad experiences. I heard so many great things before buying this product and didn't hear any complaints. Even the competitors I talked too about mattresses complimented on Select Comfort.
I am a 23 year old finishing college and just got married a few months ago. Our family knew we wanted a new bed and were given around $1000 as a wedding gift (this was a combined amount from different family members). We went shopping and found the bed we wanted, a king size sleigh bed with dark mahagonny (hope I spelled it right) wood (simply beautiful) for only $700. Now, that left us with only $300. I know what you are thinking, how am I going to buy a king size mattress with only $300? Well, thankfully we had some extra money left over from loan money so we started shopping. We found some Serta mattresses that we liked but my wife and I each liked a different models that had different firness levels. We finally compromised on a specific one and it was going to cost $999. Since this was my first time shopping for a bed and/or mattress, I didn't know if this was much money for one, but it sure felt expensive for me (especially for an mattress that we had to compromise on) so we decided we would shop around and would wait to buy our king size bed till we found the mattress we liked.
My boss told me he had a king size Select Comfort bed he bought 6 years ago where he and his wife can control their own comfort levels on their sides of the bed and that they have great sleep on it every night, just like they did when they first bought it. I was already starting to feel neck pain about getting up from the double bed we were currently sleeping in, which is the same bed, mattress, and box springs that my wife has had since her childhood, and thought this could be something I would look into. He told me that he thought he paid around $1800 for his bed 6 years ago and I thought that that was expensive, especially for a mattress, but I am also a person who if I am going to make a purchase, especially a major one, I want to get the best bang for the buck and something that will last me for many years. With that being said, I decided to check out their web site and found the 5000 series with the pillowtop to be the best value, as it contains almost everything the 7000 series does: dual comfort zones, dual wired remotes or single wireless remote, whisper-quiet pump, and additional comfort pad for those people who like it soft (like me). The only thing it didn't contain is the extra padding on top which only increases the total thickness a mere 1.5 inches, and for the extra $1000, I just couldn't justify the 7000 series.
Now that I had found the type of Select Comfort mattress I wanted and the price (it was on sale for $1900 with pillowtop option and foundation) I decided to do some comparison shopping. I talked to some friends and found another competitor to be Tempurpedic. I decided to look into this and had remembered seeing it on T.V. and had seen and felt the same material at a Brookstone store and thought it was alright. I looked at pricing and found it to cost more than the Select Comfort mattress I wanted and it didn't contain the one thing I wanted in a mattress: dual adjustable comfort zones. I had also heard that since the Tempurpedic uses memory foam that when sleeping if you move the mattress leaves a temporary imprint which could be uncomfortable and that after a long time of use it could leave a permanent imprint. I also heard that the Tempurpedic mattress becomes a lot firmer when it is cold, since the Tempurpedic material uses heat to cause the material to comform to your body. So I basically decided that the Tempurpedic Sleep System and its memory foam competitors weren't for us, and knew that if we really wanted the benefits of the Tempurpedic we could just buy the Memory Foam Mattress Topper (which uses the same material) from Select Comfort for an additional $500.
I then heard about the Nautilus Sleep System which is an air system like Select Comfort, and decided to check them out. I went to their web site and found their dual interlocking system to look cool, but then after thinking about it and researching the Nautilus system it seemed that the dual interlocking air system wouldn't comform to a person's body as well as the Select Comfort system does. I then decided to check out their top of the line model, which only cost $2500 instead of the $3000 top of the line from Select Comfort and the Nautilus model also contained the Memory Foam that I talked about previously. I then saw that the Nautilus top of the line model only contained 11.5 inches of mattress thickness, which for $500 less the 5000 Series Select Comfort contains .5 inches more. With that, the less known name that Nautilus has, and the small number of customer provided testimonials when compared to Select Comfort I decided that the Select Comfort 5000 Series was the mattress for us.
Well, after 3 months of researching mattresses I decided to finalize our mattress purchase. I researched for the last time all of the options we wanted by using the Select Comfort web site (since I like to know everything I am going to purchase before being greeted by a salesperson) and found that all accessories were also on sale. I saw they offered a dual heated mattress pad, which allows control of heat for each side of the bed, and knew my wife would love this since she likes to be warmer than I and I keep a cold house. For a sale price of only $112 I knew this was a great buy. I finally called Select Comfort on a late weekday night about 5 minutes before they were going to close (which was 10 p.m.) and was greeted by a friendly customer service representative. I told him everything that I wanted (5000 Series with pillowtop and foundation) and that the only thing I didn't know is whether I wanted the dual wired remotes or single wireless. He recommended the dual wired remotes since they are easy to keep up with, you don't have to share, and they don't use batteries like the wireless one does so that is what I decided to get. Shipping was free and he said that it would arrive in 10-12 business days.
Well, five business days later our mattress finally arrived. This was a great surprise as I had just ordered the bed that we had picked out as described at the beginning of the story that same day and was delivered right after our mattress arrived from UPS. I had to work that night so the people that delivered our bed assembled it, but I thought after getting off of work I would have to go home and spend about 2 hours putting together our mattress. I thought wrong. When I arrived home my wife had already assembled the foundation, which some say isn't worth what it costs , but I found that since it was very sturdy, easy to install, and didn't require and tools that it was very well worth the money. We then fit the foundation on our new bed and it fit quite well, and then installed the decorative coverlay, which holds the four parts of the foundation together, over the foundation. We then followed the instructions on how to install the mattress and found it to be very easy. The mattress fame basically consists of four foam walls that are placed into four corner-lock pieces, which hold the foam walls in place. At first I thought this setup would be very flimsy but found that when we placed the foam frame inside the mattress the frame itself holds up very well, and didn't shift or bow like I thought it might. We then installed the base foam piece inside the frame, and then installed the two deflated air bags. We then installed the pump and air lines, which was basically plug the pump into the wall, and then snap the two air lines into each of the air bags. We then inflated the two air bags to the Sleep Number of 20 like the instructions said, and this was probably the longest part of the install as we had to wait a total of 15-20 minutes for the bags to inflate. The bags seem very durable and remembered reading they could support up to 500 lbs. each and that they were puncture resistant, which disproves one of the things the Tempurpedic owners I talked to criticized Select Comfort on, the ability to be easily punctured. After filling the air bags you insert a foam piece in between the bags which keeps the bags from moving and offers additional support when one bag is inflated substantially different than the other. After that you install an additional comfort pad above the bags, which looks like a thick foam egg crate that contains different patterns for the different parts of the body (head, neck, shoulders, torso, hips, legs, feet, etc.) instead of the same triangle type pattern that most egg crates have. Now the only the left is to zip on the pillowtop, which was probably the hardest part, but it only took maybe at a max 5 minutes. So I would say the install took a total time of 1.5 hours, but that was because it was our first time and we wanted to be very thorough. I think that if we had to do it over again we could probably have the complete install done in 30 - 45 minutes.
I said I had ordered a dual heated mattress pad, and the install for it was very simple as well. The pad itself is very thin, and looks and is as comfortable as the pillowtop on the mattress. I was surprised that the heated mattress pad looked almost like a fitted sheet, as it contained thin material that fits over the mattress to keep the pad from moving. The pad also has very small coils and uses a low voltage, so the risk of electrical shock, although already low, is not as near as bad since it uses a much lower voltage than regular electrical blankets. The install basically consisted of placing the mattress pad over the mattress, plugging in the two seperate power supplies, hooking the mattress pad up to the two power supplies, and then plugging in the seperate controls into each of the power supplies. The install for this item took maybe 10 minutes.
After installing our bed, we fitted our bed with the Nautica sheets and comforter we had previously bought
and tested out the bed. I had already found my sleep number to be 45 and my wife's to be 35. We had a first great night's sleep and I didn't wake up with a neck ache.
After two weeks of using the bed I have found the bed to be so comfortable. Just running my hand over the pillowtop feels very soft and cushy. We haven't noticed the foam seperator between the air bags being uncomfortable like some people have commented and found that we can't even feel the foam seperator at all. The mattress itself holds up very well, even when the sides are set on two different Sleep Numbers. Another great thing is that when one of us moves it doesn't disturb the other. The pump is very quiet, but is seldom used since the air bags have no problem holding air, and is only needed when adjusting the Sleep Number.
Even though it hasn't been very cold here in Texas, we did test out the dual heated mattress pad and found it to be great. It has 10 different settings from Low to High and when turned on automatically preheats to the highest setting for 15 minutes and then adjusts to the proper setting until turned off or until 10 hours have passed, which ever comes first. Like stated in the instructions the mattress pad doesn't get as hot as a conventional electric blanket, but heats to a comfortable level so that a person is able to sleep at the level for the entire night. When testing out the pad we found it to heat up very fast and was very comfortable and not overbearing, just like it had stated. We haven't even felt the mattress pad and I had forgotten that we even had it installed, since the bed feels just like it did before we installed the pad. I think this will be a great asset when the winter comes and when the either of us has back or neck pains (which will probably never happen with this bed).
I probably won't be updating this review unless I found anything else that needs to be updated or noted. Thanks for your time and I hope that if you purchase this bed you find it to be as enjoyable as I have.
Recommended:
Yes
Mattress Size: King
Amount Paid (US$): 2100
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