Office Furniture 101

Greetings fellow Office Furniture 101 students.  Welcome to our training forum.  Right now we want to make a brief post regarding quality foam used in office chairs.  Generally speaking, foam is a petroleum based derivative that is baked in an iron and when it rises forms little round cells that have trapped air inside the chambers.  This loaf is then removed from the iron and is either cut down to smaller units (like seats and backs) or in some cases is the exact form factor for the seat or back.  This trapped air is what provides the comfort and support to rest body weight in for the duration of an 8 hour day.

The amount of chemical that is poured into the iron to create the foam determines the density of the foam.  Higher density foams have thicker cell walls trapping the air and therefore longer life before beginning the process called “break-down”.  In layman’s terms, the cell walls of higher density foam last longer (in terms of years of service) than medium and lower density foams.  This means it will take much more wear and tear in the ups and downs of being compressed and released as the user gets in and out of the chair through out the day.

Typically lower density foam only has three years of service life before they begin to the process of break down under normal usage.  Breakdown is a slow process that may take up to two more years to fully notice the affects of degredation.  By comparison, many higher density foams will have a longer shelf life (9 years in some cases) before beginning the break-down process.

Once breakdown has completed, it is usually easy to identify.  The user begins to feel the wood or metal seat pan beneath the foam or the wood frame that foam floats above on a thin layer of meshing often referred to as ultra flex.  In either case, the feeling is undeniable that despite seeing an upholstered piece of foam on the seat you actually feel like your sitting on the wood frame itself.  For this reason, USED office chairs are typically not deemed a wise aftermarket investment–even for the short run.  Even if it was built by the Mercedes Benz of office furniture manufacturers, that foam had a shelf life when it left the factory and most likely will not be able to service the new users expectations adequately.

One draw back to high density foam is that the cell walls are typcially so thick that they don’t allow a lot of flexing around the encapsolated air molecules.  For this reason a high quality high density foam chair may actually feel firm to the user at first test.  An educated consumer realizes this is a sign of high quality and like a new pair of shoes it must go through a break-in season before it really fits them perfectly.

By all means, beware because the lower the density of foam, the softer the initial sit and cheap, inexpensive chairs will woo potential suiters with their supple soft cushioning.  Yet, three years later they will be a fraction of the comfort they were when initially purchased.

For this very reason, many reputable office furniture manufacturers will laminate a thin layer of lower density foam over the foundational high density foam to provide both early user comfort and product service longevity.  Remember from an earlier lesson, we identified that shipping weight is a great way to identify product quality.  In either case, the lower density foams will weigh less than higher density foam and will show up in the shipping weight.

The entire 9 to 5 product line featured at Smart Buy Office Furniture prides itself in high density foam chairs to insure a long lasting product that the user will be proud of for years to come.  Please visit us at www.smartbuydesk.com for more examples of higher quality foam chairs.