# Hobby Mattress Problem



## 97180 (Jan 6, 2006)

Like many Hobby motorhomes the permanent rear bed of my 2005 model-year T-600 FC comprises a pair of separate interior-sprung mattresses. Fairly early on in the life of the vehicle the innermost mattress (the one with the angled cut-away) began to show signs of deformation at its edges and this unwelcome tendency gradually worsened over time.

Unzipping the mattress-inner from its casing revealed that (as often seems to be the case with Hobby-related things) the design is a tad peculiar. There is a central assembly made up of linked vertical wire-spiral springs with protective over- and under-layers of stiff felt-like material. This 'core' is surrounded by side-walls of plastic foam about 3" thick and topped and bottomed with 1" thick foam sheeting. (All the foam is soft yellowish material and looks like the cheap stuff widely available from UK market stalls or upholstery shops.) While the firmness of the mattress derives from the sprung core, retention of the overall shape relies on the upper and lower foam sheets being securely glued to the top and base surfaces of the foam side-walls. Because the plastic foam is not fixed to the core itself - essentially the core is 'loose' in a foam box - any major fault in the glued joints between the foam components is likely to lead to the mattress deforming. In my case, long sections of the foam top and bottom sheets had parted company from the side-walls allowing the foam pieces to slide about relative to each other. As none of the foam was actually damaged (it was merely the glued joints that had separated), it was a relatively simple matter to re-glue the sheets to the side-walls using aerosol-spray adhesive. Hopefully this treatment will have provided a permanent fix.

My Hobby's other mattress (the fully rectangular one) continues to be visually OK. This is what one might reasonably expect as that mattress just lies there placidly minding its own business while the adjacent cut-away mattress gets hoisted up and shoved down fairly regularly when the heater/water tank/under-bed area needs to be accessed.

I've no idea whether the problem with my mattress is a one-off or commonplace, but the design of the mattress-inner seems inordinately complicated compared to a simple slab of high quality foam and (in my jaundiced view) invites the type of failure I've mentioned above. I'm sure there are pros and cons for interior-sprung versus foam mattresses but (on the K.I.S.S principle) I'd prefer the latter type. Besides which, I don't rate the construction of the Hobby mattress-inner as particularly well designed or executed.

I began by saying that the problem-mattress displayed deformation symptoms at an early stage. Across a 2 year period it has still experienced well under 100 nights of being slept on and, as this mattress forms 'my' side of the bed and I weigh in at 130lbs soaking-wet, it should be apparent that we are not talking here about excessive wear and tear caused by constant usage or by Owner Lardy-Bottom Syndrome. Finally, to forestall any suggestions by smutty-minded souls that the glued-joint failures might have been caused by wildly enthusiastic dancing of the nocturnal horizontal fox-trot, you'll just have to take my word that (sadly) this was not the case.


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