How does the tilt tension control on office chairs work?
Saturday, February 27th, 2010 at
4:47 pm
There are some chairs at office depot that has this feature. I plan on buying one for moderate home usage. They state that you should lower the tension for lighter people and raise the tension for heavier people. But exactly how does the feature help prolong th elife of the chair. I am actually neither heavy or light in weight. And i want to prolong the life as long as possible.
Tilt tension on an office chair isn’t intended to prolong the life of the chair, its purpose is to allow the chair user to set up the correct pressure for comfortable movement when reclining and leaning forward in the chair.
Effectively, it’s just a form of spring that increases or decreases the amount of pressure to move the chair’s mechanism. The only circumstance where it might effect the chair’s life would be where someone heavy had it set it for a light user, but I can’t imagine that making that much difference.
Here’s a good rule of thumb for how long a chair may last. Take a look at the warranty being offered by the manufacturer, it’s a good barometer of their confidence in their product. You’ll find this varies from nothing (except statutory minimum) to 12 years or more, as the saying goes – you get what you pay for.
You might find this article useful http://www.officechairadvice.com/ergonomic/best/what_to_look_for_buying_ergonomic_chair.html