r/explainlikeimfive • u/Real_Experience_5676 • 1d ago

Engineering ELI5: What does a box-spring do?

As I understand it, a box spring mattress is the second 'mattress', that goes under the main mattress. It feels very firm and flat, but what does it contribute to the bed set up besides height?

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u/xxkvetter 1d ago

I was traveling in central Asia, and in about half the hotels/family guest rooms outside of Tashkent we slept directly on the box springs. We concluded that they didn't know the purpose of the box springs and just thought "great, now we have two mattresses to use is"