Plywood support for mattress

chewed

Apologies if this is the wrong forum!

I recently purchased a new mattress which just arrived on Monday. I have a standard 5' bed frame with slats.
When I bought the mattress last year I remember the guy in the shop recommending that I remove the slats and put down a piece of plywood underneath as it would give better support to the mattress. He also said, to avoid damp arising, I should drill some holes into the wood so that air can circulate.

Has anyone done something like this before? I'm just not sure how many holes or how big I should drill.

colm_mcm

I just reinforced the centre going from the head to foot of bed and put a 5th leg in the middle.

chewed

colm_mcm wrote: »

I just reinforced the centre going from the head to foot of bed and put a 5th leg in the middle.

I'm not sure I follow. So you just placed a slat going horizontal, over the existing slats, down the middle? Would that not put more press on the slats?

wait4me

Why not (plywood) sheet the whole bed leaving the slats in place? The slats would provide extra stability.

chewed

wait4me wrote: »

Why not (plywood) sheet the whole bed leaving the slats in place? The slats would provide extra stability.

Sounds good. But I assume I'll need to drill holes for ventilation?

wait4me

I don't know why you need holes in the plywood. My mattress lies on a solid base with drawers underneath. There are no air holes on the base! Where is the damp rising from? I presume that the bed frame is off the floor.

Dawn Rider

I have a lidl memory foam mattress on a solid bedframe. After a few months it got very moldy underneath due to the sweat channels built in.
You may have better luck with normal spring mattresses.

wait4me

Always a good idea to turn a mattress every so often on a bed. A total flip - upside down and top to bottom helps stop the mattress from sagging (indenting) where weight lies every night.

wait4me

Always a good idea to turn a (normal spring) mattress every so often on a bed. A total flip - upside down and top to bottom helps stop the mattress from sagging (indenting) where weight lies every night. I didn't know that memory mattresses have sweat channels and so I suppose they may need air to circulate.

chewed

I can't turn the mattress I have as it's a hard bottom. But maybe then it's less likely to build up mould?

jon1981

How do Divan beds solve the mould problem? There are no slats?! And most Divan beds are sold with pocket sprung and memory foam mattresses that cannot be turned upside down.

lgk

Divans don't use solid tops. They'll have a frame that looks much like the regular slats under the covering.

looksee

The damp is not coming up, it is from the body (sweat) and breath of the person/people sleeping in the bed.

colm_mcm

chewed wrote: »

I'm not sure I follow. So you just placed a slat going horizontal, over the existing slats, down the middle? Would that not put more press on the slats?

On our bed there was slats at the top going east > west (north being the headboard)
And a supporting timber going north>south in the middle. Underneath the slats.

What I did was screw a 3x2 under the supporting timber, and then made a leg in the very centre of the bed, which goes to the floor.