Furniture Tip-over Prevention Testing

Furniture TIp-over Prevention Testing

With the potential for serious injuries and death, furniture tip over prevention testing is a major concern for manufacturers and distributors of furniture products such as dressers, cribs, cabinets, and tables.

According to a report made by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), in the U.S. between 2013 and 2015, it is estimated that 33,100 people were treated annually for injuries related to product instability and tip-over. These injuries were the result of TVs, dressers, other furniture, and appliances tipping over or falling. The most common injuries resulting from furniture and appliance tip-overs were cuts and bruises followed by injuries to internal organs and fractures. In addition to injuries sustained from furniture instability, the CPSC reports 489 fatalities related to furniture tip-overs and instability between 2000 and 2015. To read more of the CPSC’s report, click here.

1. The furniture must pass 2 stability tests. Test 1 ensures the piece of furniture does not tip over when all drawers are opened. Test 2 requires the piece not to tip over when all drawers are opened and a 50-pound weight is added to the front of the open drawer. If the furniture has doors, weight is applied to the open door’s outer edge.
2. The furniture piece has a permanent warning label attached that is visible when the piece is in use. (Inside of a top drawer is a popular location.)
3. Include tip-over restraints with each furniture item. Restraints must meet their own standard requirements but are to be included in the sale of each piece along with instructions for installation.

Having your furniture tested is an easy way to ensure it is compliant with the safety standard for stability.

If you are a furniture manufacturer or producer and need a laboratory to perform safety and stability testing of your product(s), or any other furniture testing, let Contract Laboratory help you! Call us at 1-855-377-6821 or submit a consumer product test request on our website. Below is a list of furniture test requests we have received and helped find testing laboratories for:

• Furniture Consumer Products Laboratory needed for safety and weight capacity testing of chair attachment product.
• Consumer Products Safety Laboratory needed for safety testing of 6ft high, rotating, wooden magazine display racks.
• Performance laboratory needed for furniture life-cycle testing of seat back recline latch used as a medical device accessory to a wheelchair mechanism cycle test for 20,000 cycles.
• Large Custom Furniture Manufacturing Company needs a laboratory for product durability testing for a Murphy Bed for 3FNE 99-583A compliance. Bed mechanisms shall be cycle tested by means of attaching a mechanical arm to the frame of the wall bed so that it continually lifts and lowers the bed from a used or horizontal position to a stored or vertical position. During the course of testing, no maintenance, lubrication, or alterations to the bed are permitted. Perform the cycle test by continually lifting and lowering the wall bed from the use/horizontal position to a stored/vertical position 10,000 times at a rate of 2 cycles per minute.
• Laboratory needed for furniture testing of Murphy-type bed: cycle testing of the wall bed up and down which, because of the integrated design, will also be cycle testing the sofa folding mechanism. We also need the standard array of cycle tests to the sofa unit itself, as if it were a free-standing sofa. So, it is all cycle-type testing but it is both wallbed and sofa testing.
• Consumer Products Safety Laboratory needed for product testing and certification for a children’s toy/furniture product children’s step/stool made of wood.
• ISTA-certified packaging laboratory for carton testing of packaged furniture items, some of which will exceed 350 lbs.
• A furniture manufacturer needs a packaging laboratory for ISTA Testing of Furniture packaging. Testing to ISTA 2c level 3 or Rule 181
• Europe consumer products laboratory needed for ASTM product safety testing of Bunk Beds in wood particle Board Toddler Beds to ASTM F 1427-07 Bunk Beds ASTM F 1427-RED-07_06 Bunk Beds ASTM F 1821-13 Toddler Beds ASTM F 1821-13-RED Toddler Bed
• Office Furniture Manufacturer and Exporter needs certification a laboratory for certification testing of office chairs sold through Amazon Canada which exports from the USA to Canada. Amazon Canada requests us to submit testing documentation for our office chair.
• Learn more about consumer product test requests here!