A question about our sprung box springs?
Find answers to your questions below:
Frequently asked questions about the Le Briand box spring
Yes, all our products respect the environment throughout their life cycle, from the sheep’s back to the end of life of this natural, eco-friendly French bedding, by way of the finished product.
They never end up in landfill. They can be remade and set off again as good as new.
To answer that question, let us give the floor to those who have already slept on a Le Briand box spring.
Read the reviews of verified customers to help you move your thinking forward.
A sprung box spring has an average lifespan of 20 to 25 years, that is, the length of use before refurbishment.
This lifespan corresponds to the average time between making and the first refurbishment, or between each refurbishment.
Through this logic of repairability, we have seen box springs come back to the workshop that date originally from the beginning of the last century.
That is one of the essential advantages of the sprung box spring: it can be remade. When old bedding is refurbished, by the way, the box spring is often left aside because its outward appearance can look acceptable while everything happens inside, and the mattress gets the attention.
Conversely, when the box spring looks very tired to you, we can work miracles.
It is a theoretical value. The theory varies from one bedding maker to another.
In practice, as long as your bedding shows no signs of discomfort, the lifespan can be extended.
In practice, it depends above all on the quality of the springs, on how demanding the bedding maker’s know-how is, on how intensively it is used, on the profile of the sleepers and on the conditions of storage and care.
The height of our box springs is to be considered as a made-to-measure matter.
As standard, the height of our box springs is about 21 cm.
We can, however, vary this characteristic to suit your needs. The height of the box spring is one of the preferred variables for setting the seat height you want.
Variations in this characteristic have an influence on the price. It is therefore important to know it in order to quote for you.
If you have particular requirements about the height of the box spring for reasons that escape us, do share them from our first exchanges so that we can guide you as well as possible.
The wood of the box springs is fir. Our box spring frames are entirely cut, assembled and nailed in our workshop.
The advantages of fir for the box spring frame are as follows:
– Fir is much cheaper than so-called hardwoods such as oak, beech or chestnut.
– It is much less dense than those same woods, while having excellent mechanical strength: it bends but does not break.
– It is a softwood in which nails embed deep into the fiber. Nailed assembly stays solid over time, with no machining of the pieces beyond cutting them, no gluing and no complex joinery.
All of this makes it possible to build box spring frames that are:
– light
– relatively inexpensive
– solid
– quiet in use: no clatter of the springs against the wood when the nails and staples work loose in a harder wood, and no creaking of the wood itself, since the frame can warp slightly if the supporting surface is not perfectly flat
Finally, the wood is used raw, with no varnish and no glue. It matters to us to keep the product as free of chemical compounds as possible.
The lacing is mixed, for better hold over time:
– Polyamide string for the length, the width, the bellows and the returns
– Hemp string for the figure of eight
Once the lacing is finished, a jute cloth wraps the springs.
The filling is then built up:
– the border rolls, stitched with a double ladder stitch all around the box spring, are filled with vegetable fiber (sisal).
– a “hair stitch” over the whole surface between the springs and the jute cloth is in flax tow. No felt.
The springs are galvanized steel.
They are traditional springs in thick galvanized steel wire, laced as they would be for a seat.
The Le Briand box spring is made only of fine, natural French materials:
- Biconical springs in thick galvanized steel wire
- Natural raw linen fibers
- Jute cloth
- Raw fir wood from sustainably managed forests
- Cotton cloth
We also offer slatted bed bases.
Our slatted bed bases are, however, made box-spring style.
They are therefore covered with a fabric.
It is a solution we advise if you are looking for more firmness, the slatted base firming up the bed.
We offer 2 types of finish for the sprung box spring:
– Taut finish
– Recessed finish
Being able to offer every possible finish is a sign of full command of the bedding maker’s know-how.
A recessed box spring is a more expensive finish than the taut box spring.
A recessed box spring is flatter than the taut box spring and therefore fits the expectations of today’s customers better.
We use a very particular type of wool whose characteristics meet the demands of bedding.
The differences between the two finishes.
But it is in no way compulsory.
8 simple questions to get straight to the point.
Guiding you toward the essential information we need to make estimating your project easier.
Frequently asked questions about making the Le Briand box spring
We make box springs one at a time. Prices vary with the specifics of the order.
As a guide, you can still look at a few price references for making a sprung box spring, corresponding to a basic job built to our standard specifications.
Beyond a price that may be out of proportion with your budget, we like to draw the customer’s attention to:
✅ Weighing up the value for money of this bedding option in the light of its qualities and its durability.
✅ Not overlooking the support that comes with it, the advice and the guidance to choose the best solution the first time around.
All our box springs are made entirely in a human-scale workshop in Paris, in the 11th arrondissement.
The Le Briand mattress makers deliver a careful finish.
Yes, we make twin box springs without the join between the two parts being felt, and with an assembly system that keeps the two box springs together.
With spring technology as it was made in the past, we build them so that there is suppleness at the boundary between the two parts, so that you do not feel it.
The box spring behaves as if it were in one piece.
We advise this direction for the sake of independent sleeping. There are two box springs, each with its own lacing system. 2 separate systems.
There is another fairly common case for which we strongly recommend twin box springs:
Few staircases and elevators let a box spring wider or longer than 160/180 cm through. We have even had a few (bad) surprises with box springs 140 cm wide.
Before production, the point is to make sure the box spring goes through every space it meets on the way to its final place.
The communal parts of the building or house as much as the corridors inside your home.
That is why we encourage you to choose 2 twin box springs, even though this solution is more expensive for you.
Since we make one at a time, we can do exactly what you want with the bed feet:
– the number of feet
– the positions of the feet
– the style
We sell feet that are fairly standard. But we do not make them.
In most cases, we invite you to go to a store that sells feet to choose the style that suits you.
On our side, all our box springs are made with metal inserts using standard threads (nominal diameter 8 millimeters / M8) so that they can be fitted without difficulty when the box spring is assembled.
So any foot with an M8 thread will do.
The point is to tell us before production begins whether you want feet or not.
For the feet, we recommend not going beyond 15 cm in height, for reasons of structural stability.
Beyond that, the horizontal movements of the sleepers, transmitted from the level of the threads, could make the feet collapse.
8 simple questions to get straight to the point.
Guiding you toward the essential information we need to make estimating your project easier.
Frequently asked questions about refurbishing a box spring
Like the wool mattress, the box spring can be remade, provided the wooden frame is in good condition.
It is not unusual for us to give a second life to sprung box springs that already have several decades of good and faithful service behind them.
There are notable benefits to having your box spring remade:
– the refurbishment is done within a single day. You sleep in your own bed that evening, provided you are not too far from the workshop.
– The box spring repair is reassuring. There is no risk at all in taking measurements for old beds, for example. Even where the dimensions of those beds are unusual, the box spring came out of the recess it was in and it will go back in after refurbishment, because we start again from the same frame.
We recommend calling on a mattress maker or bedding maker to refurbish them, and they will set off again as good as new.
If you want to get rid of your old bedding for one reason or another, we also offer a recycling program.
It is important not to neglect the box spring. We tend to forget that the box spring can be remade just like the wool mattress.
What wears out on a box spring is the springs, which we do not see.
They are like car shock absorbers. After a certain number of years, as after a certain mileage, they have no resistance left and no longer carry out their suspension function. They then need to be changed.
In theory, the box spring is repaired every 20-25 years of use, that is, about every two mattress cycles.
You will have understood: the wear of a box spring cannot be seen. The outward appearance of the box spring is sometimes misleading. Despite an outward appearance that looks correct to you, it is the inside that has to be assessed.
The box spring has to carry out its suspension function as much as the wool mattress would like it to.
With that in mind, we recommend putting a refurbished mattress on a box spring that carries out its suspension function well enough.
A bed is a suspension system in which the two elements (base and mattress) work together. The mattress and the box spring are traveling companions that share the suspension work.
If the old box spring does not carry its share of the work because of tired springs, the mattress could deteriorate faster than expected.
To test the box spring (to find out whether it needs renewing), sit directly on the box spring with no mattress on it, in several places on the box spring, in particular in the areas where you sleep most.
If you sink in, that is the sign that the springs are tired. The suspension work of the box spring is no longer being done.
A few early signs of a box spring that needs repairing:
- the springs creak
- the fabric cover shows signs of slackening.
- the mattress has taken on a dished shape. If the box spring no longer does its suspension work, the mattress follows the box spring and the sleeper follows the whole. The sleeper then has the feeling of sleeping in a hollow, created by the mattress sagging.
In the case of a re-covering (a partial refurbishment consisting of covering the old box spring with a new cloth), if the springs are at the end of their travel, the newly fitted fabric will slacken quickly, which might not satisfy you. This operation should only be considered with springs in good condition.
We repair sprung box springs and slatted bed bases. Prices vary with the complexity of the restoration.
As a guide, you can still look at a few price references for box spring refurbishment corresponding to a basic job.
When we fit a (new) filling, it is good for another 20 to 25 years
How often a box spring is refurbished depends mainly on:
– actual use
– the build of the sleeper
– sensitivity
– the firmness level of the mattress
– the quality of the filling
That said it is not unusual for many of our customers to wait at least 40 years before having the box spring remade again. That is what we see in practice.
It is not possible to change the size of this type of box spring (sprung box spring).
We do indeed start again from the existing wooden frame, whose dimensions cannot be adjusted.
An old sprung box spring is made from a solid structure whose strength would be weakened if it were modified.
This constraint is above all an advantage.
You have the certainty that the box spring will go back into the bed frame the way it came out.
You know the box spring fits the bed, and it will go back in without difficulty after refurbishment.
Buying a new box spring, even a made-to-measure one, carries a risk of error: taking measurements, a badly placed batten, deformation, a particular curve at the corners (cut corner or notch), and so on…
When the box spring does not fit into the bed frame, the situation cannot be solved, and it creates frustration for everyone.
That is what makes it unique: the sprung box spring (made by hand) is the only type of bed base that it is possible to recycle.
Made with traditional know-how, it escapes the logic of planned obsolescence.
Thanks to its ability to be remade, it lasts several decades, whereas most modern bed bases last a few years on average.
We have even seen box springs dating from the beginning of the 20th century arrive at the workshop.
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Do you remember nights spent sleeping in a hollow when you were a child? That is the clearest signal of a box spring that no longer plays its part. A gaping hollow forms when there is no suspension left in the springs, the mattress following the deformation of the box spring. The cause of your bad nights then comes above all from the box spring.
Another outward symptom (less obvious) of a box spring that would need refurbishment: ripples in the fabric covering the box spring, caused by springs that have sagged and no longer put the necessary tension on the filling of the box spring.
That said, the wear of a box spring cannot be seen most of the time.
The outward appearance of the box spring is often misleading. Despite an outward appearance that looks in good condition to you, it is the inside that has to be assessed.
The box spring has to carry out its suspension function as much as the wool mattress would like it to.
To test the box spring (to find out whether it needs renewing), sit directly on the box spring with no mattress on it, in several places on the box spring, in particular in the areas where you sleep most.
If you sink in, that is the sign that the springs are tired. The suspension work of the box spring is no longer being done.
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