mattress underground recommended mattress seller told me they can only sell laminated mattress and will not sell mattress in layers. because it is against some law section 16 or 6. something??
I am very frustrated dealing with him.
Hi needhelp,
They are probably referring to 16 CFR part 1632 and part 1633 which are the fire regulations that all mattress manufacturers and retailers need to comply with.
What this means that itâs against the law to sell you a mattress or the individual components of a mattress if the mattress hasnât been subjected to a burn test and passed the regulations so they can sell their mattresses to the public.
The only exception would be if you have a prescription from your doctor for a mattress that hasnât passed the fire regulations which allows a manufacturer to sell a mattress that hasnât passed the regulations.
He is right so I wouldnât be frustrated with him since you would be asking him to break the law and possibly lose his livelihood.
Phoenix
Why are other mattress sellers selling mattresses in layers? he told me I can buy toppers from him and make a mattress but he cant sell any mattress cover to me!
He said he cant sell the latex layer he uses as a base for his mattress! But none of the toppers he sells are firm enough to be used a base!
So i cant have a mattress!
Basically, he has led me into circles.
Hi needhelp,
There are some gray areas in the law but selling a cover with the actual layers would generally be interpreted as âselling a mattressâ and could be very risky for a manufacturer or retailer should they be investigated by the regulatory agencies and the specific cover and layers they sold you hadnât been tested together as a fully assembled mattress and passed the fire regulations.
I donât think they are âleading you in circlesâ as much as letting you know what they are and arenât able to do so that they are comfortable that they are fully complying with the regulations they have to abide by.
While Iâm sure that any business would be happy to make a sale to a customer ⌠I doubt that anyone would make a sale that they believed would put their business at risk.
You can read 16 CFR part 1632 here and 16 CFR part 1633 here which are the current fire regulations that all manufacturers or suppliers need to abide by.
Phoenix
thanks phoenix. Then how come so many latex mattress sellers are selling their mattresses in separate layers and not laminated? how are they doing that? he is selling toppers but none of them is firm enough to be used as base.
why canât he sell me the firm latex that he uses as base so i can use that as base?
he told me today he cant do that. that he can only sell me toppers.
first he should have said that all his toppers are not firm enough to be used as base layer but he told me some customer made a mattress using just his toppers. that mislead me because i thought i could use his firmest topper as base but his firmest topper is not firm enough to be used as base.
Hi need help,
If this retailer isnât selling what you want, and others are, why are you frustrated? There is no obligation for anyone to sell you anything - that whole free market thing. You have choices. If they feel they donât want to sell non laminated layers, that is completely their right as a retailer, and in truth they donât even owe you an explaination.
Asking âhow come others canâ is largely irrelevant. Move on, buy from someone who sells what you want.
Hi needhelp,
Because they have assembled the layers they sell inside the cover and submitted it for the burn test as a complete mattress so that they have passed the fire regulations even though they are shipped in individual layers and are assembled at home. This is very different from selling individual components together with a cover that havenât been fire tested together as a complete mattress.
I would target your frustration at the regulations rather than the vendor.
Phoenix
hello phoenix: why is that this seller has not done so? how difficult is is to assemble the layers and submit it for this test?
Hi needhelp,
Iâm not sure exactly what you mean.
If the company you are dealing with sells complete mattresses then they would have been burn tested together as a mattress but that doesnât mean that they can sell the individual components inside their mattresses separately.
If the company you are dealing with sells mattress components or toppers and not complete mattresses then what they sell you would need to comply with the law so the regulatory agencies donât âdefineâ what you are buying as a mattress which would be subject to the regulations (for example in some cases a 4" layer sold with a cover can be âdefinedâ as a mattress not as a topper).
There are some vagaries in the regulations so there may be some differences between how different manufacturers or retailers interpret it. This would be up to them and as dn mentioned they would have no obligation to explain their reasoning to their customers outside telling them what they do and donât sell. Burn testing a mattress is very costly and no manufacturer would go to the expense of burn testing a specific design that they didnât intend to sell.
Is what you are looking to buy specifically listed for sale on their site?
I donât know the specifics of who you are dealing with or exactly what you are looking to purchase but as dn mentioned I would focus on looking for a company that sells what you want to buy (if that is available) rather than focusing on finding out âwhyâ any business makes the choices they do in terms of what they sell which is a business decision that is entirely up to them.
Phoenix
Just out of curiosity, do you know how it works with a website like sleeplikeabear? They sell all the types of latex in 1,2,3 and 6 inch layers and mattress covers. Do you they have to test all those mattresses or do they simply have a different interpretation of the statute? I only ask because I purchased from KTT and they sold all the different layers from Latex International but didnât sell covers, so slightly different from sleeplikeabear. Just curious if you or anyone know.
PS and no I havenât read the reg so maybe an exception is in there.
Hi wbroshea,
The regulations say a mattress is âŚ
quoteMattress
means a ticking filled with a resilient material used alone or in combination with other products intended or promoted for sleeping upon.[/quote]
In other words selling bare layers alone is fine. Selling a ticking alone is fine. These can be used as replacement components. Itâs when you sell them together and either promote them or there is an intent to use them as a mattress that there is a problem.
âIntentâ is also somewhat vague and plays a role in how it is interpreted in terms of enforcement.
Toppers are excluded so there can be some interpretation involved in whether a covered layer is a mattress or a topper. Once again intended use is the key and my understanding is that the cutoff point between a mattress and a topper is generally 4".
Phoenix
[quote=âPhoenixâ post=32421]Hi wbroshea,
The regulations say a mattress is âŚ
quoteMattress
means a ticking filled with a resilient material used alone or in combination with other products intended or promoted for sleeping upon.[/quote]
In other words selling bare layers alone is fine. Selling a ticking alone is fine. These can be used as replacement components. Itâs when you sell them together and either promote them or there is an intent to use them as a mattress that there is a problem.
âIntentâ is also somewhat vague and plays a role in how it is interpreted in terms of enforcement.
Toppers are excluded so there can be some interpretation involved in whether a covered layer is a mattress or a topper. Once again intended use is the key and my understanding is that the cutoff point between a mattress and a topper is generally 4".
Phoenix[/quote]
Interesting. Just to make it clear I am not disagreeing with you at all, I am just thinking out loud as this is kind of interesting to me (and probably only to me).
Intent would be very difficult to prove normally for a retail store of many items, however with a name like sleeplikeabear or other mattress stores I imagine would be much easier, but I really have no idea how it has been proven in the past. However my first thought would be taking the statute at its words. âa ticking filled with a resilient material.â Buy 12 inches of latex and a mattress cover from sleeplikeabear. Comes in separate boxes. The ticking isnât filled with a resilient material. The resilient material isnât filled into a ticking. Thus no mattress. Pretty technical so may not work, but it was the first thing that came to mind. Of course if the reg goes on to say something like - Company A cannot sell a mattress or all the components necessary to create a mattress with the intent of creating a mattress out of those components unless they test ⌠Then my argument would fail almost certainly.
Out of curiosity, know of any companies or specific complaints where an entity was found in violation of the reg? Would love to read about it.
Hi wbroshea,
Itâs âinterestingâ to me as well and a source of caution for many component suppliers and mattress manufacturers as well because the interpretation and to some degree enforcement of the regulations are subject to some uncertainty and change and if you are up against the regulatory agencies (in this case the CPSC) you are almost guaranteed to develop more than a few grey hairs and probably some significant costs (if not worse).
As an example you can see question 6 here which says âŚ
A google search on âviolation mattress flammabilityâ will bring up many enforcement actions and product recalls.
Hereâs one that was only 3" thick.
Phoenix