RV Sofa Bed Mattresses: What’s the Deal With Them Anyway?

It’s hard enough to get a good night’s sleep when traveling in a motorhome, but compound onto all the other problems — like unusual sounds, irregular and abnormal diet, and anticipation for the next day’s travels — a poor RV sofa bed mattress, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for an uncomfortable trip.
But, what really makes an RV sleeper sofa mattress different than a regular store-bought bedding for your home?

A Different Foundation
First, let’s consider the bed’s foundation: the frame.
A sofa bed frame is meant to be folded away and pulled back out over and over and over again. Obviously, a standard mattress isn’t meant to be folded, so the construction of a hide-a-bed frame involves braces, joints, bars, and other parts that a standard bed doesn’t have, thus when manufacturing a regular mattress such characteristics don’t have to be taken into consideration.

These differences mean that a hide-a-bed mattress must be constructed in a way that it won’t be damaged during the folding-unfolding process, including being thinner (usually 4″ – 5″) than a standard mattress.

Which leads us to the issue related to RV sofa bed mattress types. Innerspring mattresses don’t have enough room within the 4-5″ depth of a standard sofa bed mechanism to allow them to offer much “spring”, leading to little support and lots of backache and uncomfortable sleep (read more on this subject here). Foam mattresses are a very good option for sofa beds, but only if the foam is of high density in order for the mattress to be comfortable and for you not to feel the bar (read here about foam specifications). However, memory foam mattresses aren’t a good option for RV sleeper sofas; the main reason being that memory foam is a so-called “contouring foam”, not a support foam, and you need to use as much support foam as possible given the height limitations for your sofa mattress. Thus, choose memory foam mattresses only for your regular RV mattress, not for your camper sofa bed .

A Different Dimension
Other than the frame it sits on, RV sofa beds are all different sizes (sometimes even compared to regular sofas). Each RV manufacturer designs its sofa bed based on the dimensions available within the travel trailer itself; therefore, there is no industry standard when it comes to RV sofa bed mattresses, meaning that RV manufacturers usually custom-order the mattress.

For individuals like you and me to order a custom size mattress can be expensive in some cases. For example in the case of the innerspring sofa mattresses, apart from not being comfortable due to the limitation regarding thickness, customizing them is highly costly, so it’s even less rentable for RV sleeper sofa mattresses. However, customizing foam is much-much cheaper, making it affordable to anyone to replace their sofa sleeper mattress.

Other Differences
In addition to these reasons, when it comes to buying a RV sofa bed mattress replacement, instead of heading to your local furniture store or your RV dealer (they don’t regularly offer custom size motorhome mattresses), you have to purchase a replacement online, which using our sofa bed mattress customizer can be done with ease and at factory prices!

Benefits of online purchase include reduced cost, convenience of shopping, and making sure you’re getting exactly what you need (e.g. size, material) and what you want (e.g. comfort rating, accessories) all in one place. However, do make sure the product you’re buying only is actually made in the US, apart from smaller shipping fees (compared to shipping it from abroad), the US has stricter regulations on mattress manufacturing standards than other countries, thus you can be sure that you are getting a quality product of a better value, with a longer life.

Looking for an RV sleeper sofa mattress? Check out our website!