How strong are beds?

wndsr · 12 Jul 2015 at 11:09

Fairly random question, but interested to hear thoughts.

I've just bought a bed from John Lewis (link - it's not longer on the website) and going from a solid oak bed with a metal base and sprung slats, I'm not sure how strong this one is.

The new bed has wooden slats going from side side and in the middle, under the slats is a long piece of wood running lengthways in the middle.

After falling through my last bed (definitely nothing to do with one too many pies...), I've got bed paranoia.

Does anybody happen to know much about beds?

bitslice · 12 Jul 2015 at 13:49

They are OK if the bed is constructed properly, you are not going to snap 20 planks of wood just by lying on them.
However if the frame is loose then a plank may slide out under compression, you probably won't notice at first though.

Glaucus · 12 Jul 2015 at 13:54

Depends on the bed, my ~£40 king size frame from eBay is not strong at all and held together with gaffer tape now. The main corner joints use metal brackets screwed into 1mm something, it's between cardboard and plywood, which then attaches to the main beams. Just wtf, I don't understand. Make the main beams 3" longer and screw directly into them, instead of cardboard.

Haze · 12 Jul 2015 at 16:52

just stop having rough sex

DXP55 · 12 Jul 2015 at 19:04

I bought a new divan bed and first thing I did was cover the top with sheet of ply - next cut ply to fit two drawers and glued and pinned beading all round drawer base underneath.

Should last a few years now as it's not used for any sort of physical exercise.

MassiveJim · 13 Jul 2015 at 13:18

we went from a solid pine bed frame to one we bought online for £280 as we wanted a lower frame that we could climb over more easily.

The pine bed despite having no support in the middle was far sturdier
This bed has sprung wooden slats and a central steel bar that has legs to support it, but the sides of the bed are not sturdy at all and we were having issues with the slats popping out 4 or 5 at a time sometimes, I added a support bar to tie the 2 sides together but because the sides are made of cheese it has already ripped the screws out once.

Will be choosing much more carefully in future