mattress corner cut offs

G'day Stephen and Deborah,

I believe the cutoffs are only in the 18fter (mine is corner cut) but it might also depend on the layout in the 18plus BTs. Thats one for BTi .... I might just say though, the cutoffs dont seem to affect our sleep. Our 5 yr old still manages to crawl into our bed by morning ..both at home and in the BT ... so we have 3 in the bed by "smash the alarm with a hammer time" ! The cutoffs still dont seem to be a problem (3 yrs now).

The mattress we replaced reasonably quickly with a full 8 inch thick custom inner spring (with corner cut offs). This is a personal thing and I'd certainly try the BTi supplied one first as the custom inner spring was around $700. The foam was never hot just a little firm for our liking. Having a custom maker do it we were able to try various degrees of firmness etc in the showroom ..then add a soft finish top to it ..it was then just a matter of supplying the BT mattress dimensions.

Cleopatra usually gets what Cleopatra wants ...so I had the original replaced with the inner spring !! [smile] Their aint nuffin' better than a contented lady in the bedroom .....[wink]

Regards
Anthony

Anthony,
There is one thing better than "Their aint nuffin' better than a contented lady in the bedroom .....[wink]" and that is not having a 5 year old in there as well. {smile}

I haven't really noticed cut off corners on the BTi beds, couldn't have had my glasses on when we were in Anthony's van. I think that you will find that just about all vans that BTi build don't have the corners cut off. Some of the smaller models have the front of the frame under the bed recessed so as to give more foot room.
Our 21' van has a full queen sized island bed and we don't have any problems walking around it.

Our matress is the orginal hospital grade foam that BTi supplies. We thought that we would try it first then get an inner spring, but 3 years later we are still sleeping on it, and don't get sore backs or anything. We have used it in both hot and cold weather and never had any problems with temperatures being too hot to sleep on.

The main purpose of the cutoff is to allow additional room to navigate around the side of the bed - the need for cutoffs basically depends on the layout of the the van and how much 'free walking space' there is between the bed and, say, the fridge or dinette. It is generally more difficult to get around a classic dinette layout (ie with opposite facing seats) than, say an L-shaped dinette. SImilarly, a swivel-mounted TV situated between the bed and fridge also will impede access.

The main disadvantage of cutoffs: (1) reduced storage space, as the underbed storage also needs to be setback by the amount of cutoff (though a 'rounded' storage that matched the cutoff would be better, but I have never seen BT do that). (2) If you decide to upgrade to a full inner spring mattress, it will cost heaps to get one custom-made with cutoffs to match the bed. We have cutoffs, and it is fine in terms of overall bed size and the effectiveness of fitted sheets.

The main advantage: better access.

We inspected quite a number of vans whilst at Copeton, and those owners without cutoffs (even in 20' models) generally found access to be fairly difficult (if they had swivel-TV or a classic dinette as described above)

Phil