What’s a Better Choice – Bunkie Board vs Box Spring

Today, in this article we will be discussing about the difference between Bunkie board vs box spring, and why do you need it.

So you’ve picked a mattress and you’ve picked a bed frame. Can you just  put your mattress on it? No, don’t do it! I’m gonna tell you what you need to do.

I’m sure by now you’ve thought of a box spring and you’re not wrong, but the thought is kind of incomplete. So, you might have known about Bunkie board, but before deep-diving into the topic, first you need to understand about box spring too. Let’s get started:

What is a Box Spring?

Up until the 80s and the first half of the 90s, almost every mattress that was made was primarily an inner spring mattress. So in addition to the springs in the mattress, it also relied on the springs that were in the box spring to help with support and pressure relief.

In fact that’s where it got its name. A box spring was a box filled with springs.

What is Bunkie Board?

A Bunkie board is a piece of hardwood or plywood that’s placed under the mattress, offering enough support. It’s often used on top of box spring, platform bed, or foundation, providing proper support for a foam yet spring based mattress, which somewhat looks like a piece or part of your bed.

Difference Between Bunkie Board vs Box Spring

Almost every mattress manufactured in the last 10 years doesn’t need a box filled with springs. But what makes it confusing is that a lot of manufacturers still call them box springs, even though there’s no springs in them anymore.

It’s really just a foundation, something to raise the height and provide support for the mattress.

One option is to get some plywood and screw it onto something sturdy, like two by fours. Depending on how handy you are, that may or may not be a good option. But it’s one of those things that always takes longer than you’d expect to cut it to size, screw it to the right pieces and get it in place and it’s still not a perfect fit.

If you have platform bed, you don’t need a box spring or a boogie board. A platform bed has all of the slats built in so you can put the mattress right on top.

A lot of bed frames are just three or four crossbars and that’s all there is. Especially older wooden ones or sleigh beds. You can’t put your mattress directly on this. If you did, it would sag between the crossbars and frankly it’s probably going to void the warranty anyway.

I’m going to give you a couple solutions to that problem. For more ideas see best quality bed frames. The Zinus 4″ Low Profile Bi-Fold Foundation is called a box spring but there’s no springs involved. It’s really just a foundation to raise the height of the mattress. Other than that it’s just got a bunch of sturdy crossbars to support the mattress.

It’s called bi-fold because you can fold it in half when you’re storing it or move it around.

Zinus “Gulzar” Bunkie Board sits inside the existing bed frame but adds more slats to it, so that there’s never more than about four inches between any given slats. Some of the bars have a white tape on them. That’s just an optional slip resistant tape that you can use if you want to to prevent your mattress from moving around.

It’s a great solution if you need extra support, but you don’t want to raise the height of your mattress much.

The only practical difference between a bunkie board vs box spring is the height. A box spring, called a foundation nowadays, will raise the mattress height off of the bed frame, depending on what size you get your desired amount of inches.

Some are low-profile, some are little higher profile and they provide enough crossbars to provide adequate support.

A bunkie board provides the same function but without raising the height more than the nominal amount that it has inherently, so it still has the correct amount of crossbars to prevent sagging and provide adequate support.