Quality of Ikea chairs / any chairs under £60?

cyclonebri1

spursfan323 wrote: »

It's clear you don't rate Ikea but it's sadly not clear who you recommend.

Saying 'go elsewhere' is hardly helpful.

I should have clairfied my position, but posted to try to avoid a similar situation to this;

I worked in a senior position for a manufacturing co until recently.
We got a new MD with modern ideas, quite refreshing after some stagnation, but back to the point he wanted a new clean fresh look the the office particularly the meeting room and the "think tank"
Secretary sent of the Ikea to furnish.

Think tank was all plush velvet, soft chairs and curtaining, fancy glass and stainless and the obligatory curling green plant/thing.

The meeting room was different, metal/steel framed chairs, maybe as the ones you were looking at, were used.
They weren't fit for purpose, I tried to make this clear, (I was the H&S advisor ie, they were not suited to an office environment in my view, I'd say very light use only.

There was an accident.
Someone was say on 1 of these chairs when another person entering the room turned an ankle and fell into the lap of the seated person.
The chair collapsed but the girl seated lost 1 finger and the tip of another in the scissors of the frame.:eek:
It became a claim of course, and what made it worse was that unknown to me 2 chairs had collapsed and been binned before this accident.

Ikea in general, they are fine if you realise what you are getting.
I was harsh but maybe you can see why.

And sorry, I can't suggest where to go, as you may guess steel legged chairs are off my shopping list.

27col

Never had a problem with anything we have bought from IKEA. Including chairs. But I would not touch Argos stuff with a long stick after some of the rubbish that I have put together that came from there. I assembled a couple of their sliding door wardrobes earlier this year. They are brilliant bits of kit.(Edited: IKEA wardrobes I mean)

sunshinetours

Despite the scare stories (!) Ikea stuff in general is pretty good value for the money. What I would say is any chair of that sort of design will have inherent strength issues so do consider the weights likely to be imposed on them in regular use.

Ikea stuff is often good value to us the general public because of the scale of the operation, minimal packaging , flat pack saving storage costs and delivery costs and the fact they screw their suppliers down to the floor much like Tesco. Some of their top range stuff, despite not being made of supposedly tradional hardwearing materials, actually lasts very well

Saying that some of their most basic ranges are pretty cheap tat with limited lifespan. It is generally however cheaper than the cheap tat associated with Argos, Homebase etc which is also more difficult to assemble than anything from Ikea IMO

spursfan323

Thanks everyone for the different opinions.

In the end we went down to the local Ikea to try out the chairs - I'd urge anyone in a similar position to do likewise as the physical sensation can be very different to what the image on the website implies

The Tobias plastic ones tend to lean back a bit when you lean back. I suppose that's the nature of the design. However I'm a skinny lad but various family members aren't. So I thought if already under my weight it's lurching slightly, but alarmingly, backwards, who knows what will happen over time with the occasional visit of the family-fatties (and with enthusiastic little ones). So we have sadly crossed this one off our list.

They also do a chair called Vilmar for half the price. Surprisingly this one appeared to hold our weight much better, probably due to the straight back, but the legs splayed a little when sitting down. Can't imagine they'll last too long.

So, onwards and upwards with our search. It's more than a bit annoying that there's no obvious shop to use. Oh well....

spursfan323

I should add that it appears the quality of their products varies greatly across the ranges

e.g.

we had this http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/90121762/ it is cheap tat / not dissimilar to something Homebase/Argos might do

we got this
http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/S29857884/
it appears to be good quality

cyclonebri1

spursfan323 wrote: »

Thanks everyone for the different opinions.

In the end we went down to the local Ikea to try out the chairs - I'd urge anyone in a similar position to do likewise as the physical sensation can be very different to what the image on the website implies

The Tobias plastic ones tend to lean back a bit when you lean back. I suppose that's the nature of the design. However I'm a skinny lad but various family members aren't. So I thought if already under my weight it's lurching slightly, but alarmingly, backwards, who knows what will happen over time with the occasional visit of the family-fatties (and with enthusiastic little ones). So we have sadly crossed this one off our list.

They also do a chair called Vilmar for half the price. Surprisingly this one appeared to hold our weight much better, probably due to the straight back, but the legs splayed a little when sitting down. Can't imagine they'll last too long.

So, onwards and upwards with our search. It's more than a bit annoying that there's no obvious shop to use. Oh well....

So do you now see sense in my "sharpish" post that was intended to focus you on their lightweight design??, plus the fact that there isn't a cheap competitor;);)

Biggles

If you want something like in the picture, ie a cheap office stacking chair, go to somewhere that sells office furniture, eg Viking Direct.

But, for a solid serviceable chair, I'd look round junk shops till I found a set of antique (or just old) ones. Much better quality, probably half the price.