Pocket Springs Explained

Pocket Spring mattresses are probably the most widely suited of all mattress types. This is because they offer the most flexibility in terms of support, comfort layers and durability. Nothing has ever outperformed pocket springs in tests and online mattress reviews. A Pocket Sprung mattress is made up of a spring support system which is then topped with different layers of upholstery.

What are Pocket Springs

Pocket springs are individually housed springs that are then wrapped in a particular material with the better quality ones wrapped in a breathable material.

As pocket springs move independently from one another, the mattress can adapt to your individual body shape providing you tailored support and perfect spinal alignment. Pocket sprung mattresses are designed to relieve the build-up of pressure points as the weight of your body is distributed across many different springs. Pocket springs also reduce transference and movement between sleepers significantly eliminating roll together.

Spring Count

A word on spring counts, It’s not as simple as the more pocket springs a mattress has, the better it is! The minimum number of pocket springs you should be looking for in a king size mattress is 1000.

You may see spring counts in the thousands and these should be taken with a pinch of salt. Usually, the more springs you find in a mattress the smaller these springs are. At a certain point, this becomes useless as they are too small to function properly In the race to increase mattress spring counts, many manufacturers are using micro or HD (High definition) mattress pocket springs. But is there any benefit? Do you really need 8,000 pocket springs in a mattress and how on earth do they fit them all in? In our opinion Micro or HD springs are the latest marketing trick.

Full Height Zoned Pocket Springs

The expectation that a quality pocket spring will be 16 to 18cm is usually standard in high-end mattresses. Each spring is usually between 6 and 9 turns. Again, anything above 6 turns is almost superfluous. Retailers have made springs longer for marketing, but 9 turn 20cm springs are actually really unstable. We use the same spring type as other high end manufacturers, 6 Turns, 18cm long and in varying wire gauges dependent on comfort chosen. We avoid shorter micro springs as they compress far too quickly and offer far less support (other than inflating the spring count for manufacturers).

Micro springs and HD springs make a mattress unnecessarily more expensive due to the often misleading spring count stated. Smaller height springs cannot match the support of 18cm full height springs. By reducing the size of the springs, manufacturers have overengineered the mattress and you then require even more springs to counteract the compression of the sleeper weight. It also means there are great amounts of wire taking up valuable space compared to breathable fibres and layers which are much better for comfort than Micro/HD Springs.

Micro/HD Springs

HD (High Density) Pocket Springs or Micro springs are small pocket springs that many bed manufacturers use to vastly increase their mattress spring count. Micro springs or HD springs were created to allow additional ‘support layers’ to be used in mattresses. Originally this would be for very small mattresses, such as cot mattresses where this would be the only spring unit and could fit in a far smaller mattress.

Now HD springs and small springs are useful for things like mattress base pads or deep handmade toppers. In reality, there are only a few legitimate uses for them. They do allow manufacturers to boast ridiculous spring counts in a mattress though.

Micro springs compress really quickly, which is probably where the benefit of ‘micro-adjustments’ comes from, as they are only about an inch in depth. So when using them as a support layer you need layer after layer of them to get any meaningful support. You need a lot more of them to do the same job as a 18cm full height pocket spring.