Do You Need a Box Spring for Your Modern-Day Mattress? (2025) Leave a comment
You are in all probability acquainted with a field spring, the easy wooden body with springs that acts as a assist base below older mattresses. It isn’t a extremely technical piece of apparatus like a sensible mattress (or a trampoline, would not that be enjoyable)—this type of mattress basis has continued via the ages solely attributable to its easy and sturdy design. However have you ever seen you is probably not seeing them as usually these days?
In my view as a profession mattress tester, up to date mattresses are on their technique to making this furnishings addition out of date. Nevertheless, that doesn’t imply it routinely will get booted out of your mattress setup situation. Let’s unpack what a field spring truly is, why chances are you’ll or might not want one, and the place it might set you and your mattress up for achievement.
For this text, I am relying alone experience as a Spencer Institute–licensed sleep science coach and mattress tester of 5 years, in addition to that of John Merwin, CEO of 3Z Manufacturers (maker of Helix, Nolah, Bear, and Leesa) and founding father of Brooklyn Bedding.
The Field Spring’s Backstory
Mattresses again within the day weren’t what they’re now, and that time-frame extends from the earliest iterations of mattresses to 50 years in the past to at the moment. Help was, let’s simply say, fairly abysmal. Consider a mattress fully filled with hay, and most of the time that’s what you needed to work with. The field spring was meant to alleviate that lack of assist with its introduction through the late 18th century.
Engraving depicting a coiled spring mattress, demonstrating its lightness in contrast with a feather or a feather and spring mattress of an identical measurement. Its manufactures additionally beneficial it as “it doesn’t harbour vermin or filth”. (Picture by: Common Historical past Archive/UIG by way of Getty Pictures)Common Historical past Archive/Getty Pictures
A field spring entails a wood body or base that comprises innerspring coils or has coils set atop the bottom. A cloth casing is commonly concerned to maintain all the pieces contained. This can be a deliberate design selection, as a result of the coils within the field spring are springing as much as meet the mattress atop it. The wood body has slats to make sure that no sagging is occurring across the heart of the mattress, whereas offering some foundational backup to the coils.
If we expect again to the ye olde mattress days, or the time earlier than mattresses in a field had been a factor (which was 2004, to be actual), the field spring was the predominant piece of furnishings that accompanied your mattress. As time went on, field springs advanced to assist a selected sort of mattress—conventional innerspring coils.
“Conventional coils are sometimes called Bonnell coils, which have been utilized in mattresses for generations,” says 3Z CEO John Merwin. “They’re designed in an hourglass form the place they’re wider on the prime and backside with a thinner center to supply a mix of assist and adaptability.”
However why does this coil sort want a field spring within the first place? In the end, it got here down to creating certain sleepers had been actually getting assist throughout the board, er, field spring. Conventional coils “are designed to supply a mix of assist and adaptability, however as a result of these coils are linked by a community of wires, they have an inclination to maneuver as a unit moderately than individually,” Merwin says. “This makes them extra depending on a field spring or basis to supply correct assist and take up shock.”
