The majority of our beds come with a sprung beech slat system as standard. A base with sprung slats has curved and laminated wooden slats which sit within the solid wood bed frame. The natural flex in the slats means that they will adjust to your profile. The slats are designed to flex where you exert the most pressure, usually under you hips and shoulders. Pine slats have no flex and are, therefore, firmer. Which you prefer may be a matter of taste, but there are other considerations….

Mattresses “wear out” over time because they lose the ability to spring back to their full thickness. I.e. they get too soft where you have the most weight, under your hips and back. In other words the materials in the mattress, whether they’re foam or springs, get tired of adjusting to your profile. Flexible slats take some of the strain, so the mattress doesn’t have to do so much work!

We are a small company and haven’t been able to do any trials to prove this, but our experience and customer feedback bears it out. And after all – it stands to reason! It is one of the reasons why at the Natural Bed Company we’ve used sprung beech slats for over 30 years.

Everything that’s good gets copied – it’s almost a universal truth – and there are now plenty of budget sprung slats from China, but we’ve continued to use best quality sprung beech slats from Germany and France. The idea’s too good to spoil by using cheaper, inferior products.

Which should I choose, sprung beech or fixed pine?

95% of our customers choose sprung beech slats for comfort and support. Both of our directors have sprung beech slats on their beds too! We occasionally have customers who want a very firm feel and prefer pine slats, and some customers need fixed pine slats to withstand a humid environment. However I (and my mattress) wouldn’t be without beech sprung slats!

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