Not sure if this is the right place to post this.
Since my modest garage shop and modest skills aren’t up to making a full dining room set, we decided to purchase chairs and I would make the table.
So about a year or so ago we really needed the chairs even though I wasn’t ready to go on the table, so we went to a local store(Endicott/Binghamton NY area). This is one of the better furniture stores in an area that is sadly lacking in selection and variety. I would say it’s perceived as having furniture that’s a step or two above a big box like Raymour and Flanigan, but not as good as Ethan Allen — just for some perspective on where it falls in the market.
So we purchase a set of six oak ladder back chairs made with round mortise tenon joints for the base of the chair — the back of course the slats were mortised into the uprights. Sorry if some of my terminology is off.
They seemed solid. I forget the brand off the top of my head — have it at home. Price per chair was $189.
Fast forward four months, and a couple of them are starting to get loose! They are not heavily used, and are on hardwood floors so have less racking stress than chairs on a heavy carpet. We have two small children, and don’t even use the chairs every day. I take the worst one to the store and they send it back for repair. I ask what the repair process is, and teh owner doesn’t know. I ask if I can speak with someone from the factory and he says there is nobody I can talk with!!
I’ll try to make this short. Fast forward a few more months, and I have to return two more. I ask again to speak with a factory rep, and am denied. I’m not too happy, but at least the chairs are getting repaired (they came with 20 year warranty).
Now, I’m assuming that the problem is one of a few things — glue starvation, bad glue, or bad joints. I think the joints are ok, and that glue starvation is the most likely, but since I can’t speak with anyone at the factory I’m not really sure.
FAst forward to this week and I take the last three in for repair. Each is in varying state of looseness. I tell the owner, quite calmly and rationally (my 8 y.o. was with me) that I would really like to speak with a factory rep, and if I can’t then I”d like a refund on the chairs. I’d like to know what’s being done to repair them, and get some level of comfort over whether they will hold up long term or not. I think it’s a fair request, but it gets denied. I ask again and he basically explodes and says bring the chairs back and I’ll give you a refund.
He says it must be the way we are using the chairs. I tell him I have stools at our kitchen bar that I’m pretty sure came from WalMart (they were in the house when we bought it) and they are holding up for 8 years now with heavy use.
Now, I LIKE the chairs if they were solid. I want to keep them since we need chairs. I tell him this, and reiterate that all I want is to speak with a factory rep. He is flustered, angry, and at this point I just agree to return the chairs. I am agast at being treated this way as a repeat customer. I keep my composure though and return with the other chairs, and without my child.
At this point he gives me my refund and makes a snide comment that maybe I can find something suitable at Walmart. This stops me in my tracks. I calmly explain once again that all I wanted was to speak to a rep or repair manager from the factory. He says in almost a yell “I know waht you want. You asked three times. I heard you.”
Again, I can’t believe the treatment. This business owner has never been the friendliest person, but this is downright hostility. I say to him the chairs were falling apart, and his reply — “they were just a little loose.” I”m once again shocked. I cut my losses and leave.
So, I have a question for anyone who might have knowledge of the furniture bus at this market point. Do they use factory reps to market their products? Was this guy telling the truth when he said there was nobody I could talk to about my chairs, or was he just stonewalling? And why would he do that?
Was I wrong in expecting chairs at this price point to hold up a little better? My parents have chairs they bought almost 20 years ago from a discount place that was named Philadelphia Sales (sort of like a Woolworth’s). They were unfinished, and certainly not elegant, but it was what they could afford at the time, and not one of them has ever come loose.
I’m still amazed at the way I was treated, and of course wont’ shop there anymore. Which is unfortunate because I like to patronize local businesses. Now we’ll probably end up going to Syracuse for chairs, and the new living room set we need.
Replies
Billy,
I don't think you were wrong in your approach or requests but I would have tried "Chair Doctor" on the joints
I've used it several times on chairs and stools which started to loosen up with success.
ASK
Hello Billy ,
Sorry to hear of your problem , but gosh things could be much worse .
I'll try and answer or give some ideas on this :
First of all do you know the name of the factory and it's location ?
My first hunch is the factory may be overseas ,
If the factory is not nearby then a repair person either authorized by the factory or business is doing the repairs , perhaps the owner of the store has a back room and the repairs are done right there .
As far as wanting to talk to a rep to find out about the repairs or why they needed repair , what makes you think the rep could even answer you ? He probably never saw your chairs . The rep is in charge of selling not repairing .
You ask what could have caused the failures and said that is why you wanted to talk to someone , it is too late now but you could have simply looked at the joints especially any that were very loose or apart to see if they were starved of glue or the little toe nails split the new tenons or maybe they used hot glue to assemble parts of the chairs .
My guess little glue and maybe little or no clamp time and perhaps a problem of MC has forced the parts to a loose fit .
All of it added up is certainly not what we could call high quality as seen by the test of a short time .
Did you try and call the factory ?
Over all besides the store owner being a jerk (he is probably getting his going out of business sale organized as we speak) he did honor the written and implied warranty , he did repair the chairs as he should have . The warranty said nothing about you being able to speak to a factory rep at your request ,it is simply not how things are done in much of our society.
I'll bet you a cup of coffee the factory was not stateside
regards dusty
Unless we can afford to buy truly custom made furniture from a woodworker, we must buy furniture from a mass-production facility -- a factory.
Factories are constantly scrutinized for ways to make them more efficient -- ways that they can produce more, faster.
And in the case of furniture making, one of the ways that they have done this is to circumvent the proper wood-drying process.
You mentioned round tenons in the leg braces. It doesn't take much change in moisture level for such joints to "let loose". And once the leg braces have lost their stability, the rest of the chair will be subjected to extreme forces of racking.
A chair maker (a person, not a factory) who understands this, will take extreme measures to assure that round tenons are dry. Not just kiln-dried dry, but sahara desert dry.
It's not uncommon for the braces to be put into the woodworker's oven (yup, in the kitchen) at a low temp for many hours. And some chairmakers have designed and built "ovens" in their shop -- many times just an insulated box, with a couple of incandescent lights in it.
This extreme drying assures that the round tenons are at their dryest/smallest when the chair is assembled.
And factories just don't do that kind of stuff.
billy,
While the store manager had an attitude, I'm somewhat at a loss as to your disappointment with his/the factory's treatment of the problem. They came with a 20 year warranty. If I'd been the builder, reglueing the loose joints would've been my approach. Tho if the chairs are from a large mfr, it'd probably be easier for them to replace, rather than repair.
Now, with that said, I find it difficult to imagine a $189 chair with a 20 yr warrenty. The store probably paid around $90 for it. At that price, fine craftsmanship simply isn't in the picture. Many factories skimp on glue in assembling stick chairs, as wiping away any squeezeout takes far longer than assembling the chair. They usually "reinforce" the glue starved joints by shooting a nail or staple into them. Further, the length of the tenons on the ends of the rounds is generally pretty short. Even in the best of circumstances and with excellent craftsmanship, a ladderback type chair will more often than not loosen up over time. (Hopefully not within a year!) This type of joint is particularly susceptible to fluctuations in moisture- if the chairs had been built, say in the high humidity of July or August, and moved into a dry environment (forced air heat) come winter, it isn't surprising to have some loosening occur. Also, as you have surmised, it is possible that you got hold of a set that went bad for some other reason- too much moisture in the wood, bad glue, undersized tenons, in production work it's all possible.
As aggravating as it is for you to have to keep taking the chairs to the store for repair, I can tell you, it is moreso for the builder to stop his production and take time out to make the repairs. I hate warranty work! As I'm typing this it occurred to me that a possible reason that the manager is less than forthcoming about the "factory rep" may be that he is regluing the chairs in house, or having the work done by a local source. Particularly if the warranty is originating with the store rather than the mfr. Or if the mfr is somewhere overseas, not out of the realm of possibility given the state of the furniture industry nowadays.
Ray
Thanks for all the replies. Good info.
The factory is in North Carolina, not overseas. I just don't have the paperwork at hand, and dont' recall the brand.
I agree that a 20 year warranty on a $189 chair is pretty darn good. The chairs were actually sent back to the factory for repair (or at least to some site not at the store), according to the store owner. They were gone for four to six weeks each time.
My motivation in speaking with whoever was doing the repair was to know if the joints were badly cut, or if they just seemed glue starved. The latter would be much less disconcting to me than the former. The joints were glued and then tacked with a brad, so the point about not wanting to clean up squeeze out is probably right on.
I'd have called the factory myself directly, but I just assumed I could get a name from the store owner to get the call done much more effieciently.
Anyway, thanks for all your comments. The store has been around for years and years, and I suspect will be for some time to come. Time to go chair shopping.
Couple things to add: 1) The manufacturer didn't replace the chairs, the definitely repaired them. 2) My disapppointment was only due to lack of information. I only wanted to know why the chairs failed, and what the repair was (i.e. - were they taken apart to reglue, or was some procedure like chair doctor being done). I never requested a refund until I was denied that info a few times. Maybe I was expecting too much.
Edited 1/14/2009 1:03 pm ET by billyymc1
Ray, you're giving me the chills reading about how factories build. <SHIVER>
Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Buck up Chris,
It's good work repairing 'em. Some of them keep coming back, again and again ;-)
Attached is a pic from the wall of my shop, beside the door. It's a piece of a chair's slip seat that gave way when someone's grandchild stood on it.
Ray
The trial and tribulations of a woodworker dealing with retail furniture. Once you know how something should be built...If I ever consider buying furniture or cabinetry I just look at how the thing is engineered. A chair can be pocket screwed together if it is braced correctly.I would have recommended garage sale chairs until you could build them. Chairs a woodworker would find acceptable (design/fit/finish) probably won't be less than $700 each on a retail level.If they have a 20 year warranty then I would say you bought wisely and make multiple copies of your receipts. If you really get tired of having them repaired you might be able to brace them up enough in your shop to save the hassle.But I would just keep taking them in, they might eventually agree to let you upgrade to a more durable design.
FYI, I found some info on the furniture in question. Here is a link to the company that made it:
http://www.keystonecollections.com/index.asp?dealer=popsoak
If you go under the Shaker Classic collection, the chairs we had were the ones without the finial.
I was mistaken - made in PA, not NC (that was a desk we bought from the same store).
I think this is decent furniture, and I'm in no way badmouthing the maker. I believe if someone could have discussed the problem with me, and told me what the fix was and why it would work, I'd have kept the chairs.
Company that makes it is Martin Wood Products LLC, and there is a 25 year guarantee on workmanship: http://www.keystonecollections.com/warranty.asp
Anyway...I guess I should have tried to contact the company to ask about the problem, but I still can't see why the owner of the store where I bought the chairs could'nt give me a contact name or number.
Edited 1/14/2009 5:53 pm ET by billyymc1
There was a time when I was quite pleased with the kind of factory built furnitue you had there, because puting it back together for folks after it had failed was how I earned quite a bit of my revenue. Some of it looks pretty good, but the joints just don't hold up to the changes in climate our modern market demands. Verne
If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to cut it up and make something with it . . . what a waste!<!----><!----><!---->
Ha! That's pretty funny - Keystone's definition of "Shaker", that is. The only resemblence to a real shaker piece that their chairs have is the "bowling pin" finial. Otherwise, they're not even close.
I think you may have already concluded this, but there's probably only 3 ways you're likely to get this type of chair made to a standard where they'll be around in 50 years -
Buy antiques, and by antiques, I mean 50+ year old antiques. Sometimes this is the most cost-effective way to go.
Build your own. Chairs aren't hard to make properly, but they do take a lot of time, and don't sell for much (unless you're a famous name), hence one doesn't usually find high-quality in a store.
Buy them from a small shop that's been doing it for years and really knows what they're doing. Brian Boggs comes to mind. Superb chairs, high price tag. But, because they're Brian Boggs, they'll likely hold quite a bit of their value. Perhaps a slightly less pricey source would be Thomas Moser. Also not cheap, but you get what you pay for.
One other option is to change to a style that's inherently strong. Windsor chairs, made correctly, will tolerate an incredible amount of abuse. There's good reason why the ones made in colonial America have largely survived if they didn't get burned during the civil war. And there are so many small makers of traditional Windsors today through the efforts of Michael Dunbar and others that their prices have been beaten down to commodity levels, though not anywhere near as cheap as the "slave labor" models built of "Philipine Mahogany" (Luan - it's not even related to mahogany).
There are only two types of chairs, ones that are loose and ones that are going to get loose. Having said that most chairs that are imported are C---p. I have experienced brand new imported chairs when first unwrapped that had broken joints. While some furniture made off shore looks good, generally they are made of inferior materials and very poor construction. Truly this should be considered disposable furniture. Some of the popular selling sites are loaded with this stuff.
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