UK bed and mattress facts

UK sizes are not the same as European or American ones, and the names overlap confusingly. A UK king is 43cm narrower than a US king.

After year five, TEMPUR does not replace the mattress. You buy a replacement at a discount that shrinks every year, calculated on the current list price rather than what you originally paid.

Every brand sets its own threshold, and they do not agree. The same sagging mattress is a defect to one manufacturer and normal wear to another.

Two things worth knowing. Brands publish these figures on their care pages as often as their guarantee pages, so check both before concluding there isn’t one. And normal softening is never a defect — the industry position is that body impressions show the mattress is working as designed.

Using the wrong base voids the guarantee, and there is no common figure. A base that satisfies one brand breaches another.

Simba lists “use by any individual weighing more than 18 stone (114kg)” among the grounds on which it may reject a claim — a listed exclusion, not a guideline. Not every manufacturer publishes a limit, and we have not found one stated by every brand, so this is worth checking on the specific guarantee rather than assumed to be an industry norm.

Simba is one of very few UK brands to publish a full weight table, and the spread within a single brand is the striking part — a king ranges from 23kg to 57kg depending entirely on specification, not size.

Never turn a single-sided mattress. All the comfort filling is on one face; flipping it puts you on the bare side, and Sealy lists exactly that as a voiding condition. Never re-roll a bed-in-box mattress either — the NBF is explicit that bending or rolling permanently damages the spring unit and invalidates the guarantee.

Worth noting honestly: the specific frequencies are industry convention published without citation, from a trade body representing manufacturers. No study has tested rotation frequency against measured durability. The reason to follow them is that your guarantee may require it.

• UK mattresses are covered for ignition resistance by BS 7177.
• The Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988 govern upholstered furniture — but for labelling purposes the regulations state that upholstered furniture does not include mattresses or upholstered bed bases. So the permanent and display label requirements that apply to sofas do not apply in the same way to mattresses.
• In practice UK mattresses carry an FR or batch label sewn into the top end.

Separate from, and usually stronger than, the manufacturer’s guarantee. Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, your rights are against the retailer who sold it — not the manufacturer. Retailers routinely deflect to the brand; they are not entitled to.

Two things people get wrong. The six years is a limitation period for bringing a claim, not a six-year guarantee — you must still prove an inherent defect present at delivery, and a mattress that simply wore out is not a claim. And under s.24(8), a refund after the first six months may be reduced to account for the use you have had, which after several years is substantial.

This is general information, not legal advice. Citizens Advice can help with a specific dispute.

Moisture regain — how much water vapour a fibre absorbs at standard conditions — is the mechanism behind why natural fillings feel less clammy. The gap between natural and synthetic is enormous.

This buffering is continuous — the fibre absorbs and releases as conditions change, and does not fill up. That is the structural difference from a gel or phase-change layer, which holds a fixed amount of heat and then stops working.

The most useful section on this page. These are figures and terms used confidently across the industry for which we have been unable to find a governing standard, definition or published evidence base. That is a statement about what we could locate, not proof that nothing exists — if you can point us to a source for any of them, we will correct the entry and say so.