Ummm, I have both. You need a boxspring to support the mattress and the slats support the box spring, even when you have am interior edge on the frame. If there is no platform, you need those slats. When my son had a bunk bed, however, I had a piece of plywood cut to sit on those edges of the top bed. I worried that with only the slats, boys might think it funny to kick or push them out of place to make the mattress fall. :)

Agreed -- the box spring supported by slats provides proper support for the mattress.

Thanks freethinker99. I had NEVER heard of putting slats together with slats.

It is an either/or setup.

Pbx, usually you need a combination of both slats and a box spring. Many modern box springs are just hard firm foundations so platform bed is fine for your mattress. It better have slats with something like what, a 3" gap at most.

The weakness of most headboard / footboard & rail beds are the center supports under the cross slats. if you want to make a bed stronger use more of those.

Maybe post a picture of your set up if the debate is if the set up is strong enough.

The instructions I got with my Beautyrest mattress were to use slats not the bed frame. I just want to add that the op should be careful when buying a mattress these days because many makes, even high end ones have models that have a box spring that consists of a box with padding and ticking---no springs. In my opinion, if I am paying for a box spring it should have springs--and the more spings the better.

I manage a furniture store and share tour preference for the steel "semi flex" box springs. Some mattresses aren't even supposed to use those with their little bit of flex though. Most all mattresses would be perfectly happy thrown on the floor or a hard rigid platform style bed. The uber cheap ones might be the only exception in our line up right now which come to mind.

Steel box springs do have an advantage over wood foundations in that they are less prone to squeeking in my experience and are a bit more heavy duty in "extreme use" situations.

We bought a new Tala day foam mattress about 8 years ago. We also bought the frame they sold to go with it, which has adjustable slats. They can be shifted to increase or decrease the support/firmness. the slats seem much stronger than the wood slats in a normal box spring. I never saw a steel box spring so I can't comment on that.

I have a strong preference for foam mattresses and have found only slats are necessary with that type.

Texas I agree with you on foam mattresses. To me they are more comfortable and last longer.

pbx2, I think your bed will.be fine. i like the metal cross slats and it looks like you got things leveled nicely. as with all beds pay attention to them center legs and make sure they stay upright when sliding stuff under it or nudging the bed left or right.

@toronado3800 Zone 6 StLouis - any reason to go with Slats at all in my above setup?

This is really the debate between the s.o. & I.

I believe a solid box spring or 2 in my case - provides the most support for a king size mattress. Even though this particular bed does offer a slat system base as an option from the manufacturer Bernhardt .

Pbx, you NEED those three cross slats to hold your boxsprings right. if you have more you can install great. It is probably overkill though.

To eliminate the box springs you would need slats every 3 inches or so or some kind of platform set up to properly support your mattress. if you go with either make sure they have alot of center supports. sagging slats do minimal good.

So yeah, I agree. Boxsprings on your 3 slats with center supports are for sure good.

If your bed is just resting on a bedframe than you do need a box spring and you don't need slats. If you don't have a bed frame and your mattress is setting in a wooden furniture frame than you do need slats.

brentwood home 13 inch gel hd memory foam mattress is the most recommended one. Memory foam mattresses are medically advised to get rid of back pain issues.

tomcircle

If your bed is just resting on a [bedframe[(https://www.houzz.com/products/beds-prbr0-br~t_547) than you do need a box spring and you don't need slats. If you don't have a bed frame and your mattress is setting in a wooden furniture frame than you do need slats.

If you look at the picture of our bed above- you see that the bedframe is attached to the bed sideboards. We currently put 2 twin boxspring longitudinally ontop of this metal frame to support the king mattress.

The original posit was: can the boxsprings & in this case metal bedframe support be swapped out with slats support or (euro) slats like the one below:

They can be swapped out pbx, but the ones in the picture are not the best of ideas for any of the 40+ mattress models we sell. the ones in your picture are arched and have a good amount of flex to them. that will soften whatever mattress you put on there, and soften it in an odd way. Consider them slats will give more on each side of that center bar than in the middle. Kings have a tendency to high center as it is.

All that is out the window if the TwinXL box springs under your king have soft flexible tops and rigid sides. I just don't see it as a probability.
The best replacement for your box springs is a hard firm foundation. Imagine a sheet of plywood on that many real wood STRAIGHT slats each with at least one center support leg, preferably two.

This looks like a 4" semi-flex low profile boxspring to me. Could be wrong about the height though. It looks to be a pretty decent fellow. how hard is it to push down on? if they are new or still pretty darned firm and uniform all across these are fine. a platform base is only going to drop your mattress a couple inches.

@toronado3800 Zone 6 StLouis

This looks like a 4" semi-flex low profile boxspring to me. Could be wrong about the height though. It looks to be a pretty decent fellow. how hard is it to push down on? if they are new or still pretty darned firm and uniform all across these are fine. a platform base is only going to drop your mattress a couple inches.

....Kings have a tendency to high center as it is.

This last part where the middle of our brand new Simmons Beautyrest Firm matttress seems to be higher than the sides - is what bugs my wife.

Is that a symptom of King mattresses? We thought it was only on Eurotop (memory foam top) mattresses like our prior Simmons.

But it appears you are suggesting that switching from our current low profile twin boxsprings to the euro-style slats above may have also create some other unintended negative effect - such as sagging in other places.

**PS: yes- those low profile boxspring in the pic is only 1.5 years old & is from our prior Simmons Eurotop that we got rid of because of the memory foam hump in the middle.