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Furnishing your office can be one of your biggest expenses when it comes to home decor. You could go out of your way to make sure there’s comfort and quality because after all, this is where you’ll be spending the work day.
So, it is understandably frustrating when that office chair that you have carefully picked begins sinking every time you sit down on it. What can you do if the office chair isn’t providing you with a solid, comfortable seat?
You can get a sinking chair fix or a chair cylinder replacement kit.
You don’t need to replace the cylinder if you don’t want to. Just get a sinking chair fix and it will work on many types of office chairs.
But if you’re up to the task, you can get a chair cylinder replacement kit from Amazon (or other stores), and easily replace the source of the problem without replacing the comfortable parts of the chair.
Before considering a new office chair, you might want to know a couple more tricks on how to keep your office chairs from sinking.
Why Does Your Office Chair Sink?
You might be wondering why it’s happening. Why are some office chairs so insistent on sinking?
The most common reason is that they have lost their lift i.e., the cylinder hydrolics responsible for the lifting effect is leaking from its chamber. The entire mechanism is known as a gas spring. What you need to know is that every time you make use of the chair lever to adjust the height, the cylinder shifts chambers during which it can also seep air out of the cylinder.
This could happen due to a faulty cylinder or it could just be because of extended use. Nonetheless, when enough air leaks out, there won’t enough gas to support your weight, which in turn will cause your chair to sink.
Can You Replace the Office Chair’s Cylinder?
For most office chairs that are sinking, you can simply replace the mechanism with a new office chair cylinder. At the end of the day, if your cylinder has run out of its gas cushioning, the most effective thing you can do is to replace it. But this brings to question the feasibility of such a task. How easy is it to actually replace the cylinder of your office chair?
Well, it’s surprisingly easy. If you have a rubber mallet and a wrench, you can make quick work of it.
Twist the old cylinder until it releases fully from the full set-up and then essentially tap it away from the machine with the mallet. If it’s particularly tight, you can also spray a quick coating of WD-40 to get it off smoother.
Then all you have to do is slip the new cylinder onto the base of the chair, and raise them both together along the shaft until the mechanism clicks into place. Screw back on the main bolts and set the chair upright.
When you sit on it, the cylinder will fasten into the mechanism. Just make sure you don’t throw your full weight onto the chair when trying to start the mechanism the first couple times. This will help test the mechanism and the sturdiness of the installation.
How to Keep Your Office Chairs from Sinking without Replacing the Cylinder
However, having minimal or absent lift doesn’t mean that your chair is a lost cause. Here are a couple tips on how to fix your office chairs from sinking:
1. Office chair cylinder shims that fixes sinking chairs
There are shims for sinking chair cylinders that can help your keep your chair from sinking. Simply raise the chair to the highest point possible and start attaching the C-shaped spacers. It’d even help to get the cylinder skirt out of the way.
Put them on and press them individually, after which start putting even weight so that spacers are at about knee level. Now, when the height is right for you, sit down fully on it to let the spacers bond.
2. Hose Clamps or Jubilee Clips
Another fix is to use a hose clamp and essentially duct tape the cylinder into place. This fix, while sturdier than the spacer, is permanent and can’t be changed without undoing the entire set-up.
Adjust your chair to the correct height and mark around the base of the cylinder on the main shaft. This step is particularly important because you can’t quite go back to fix your chair’s height after this.
Slip the hose clamp over the cylinder in its unscrewed state, and once you’re near the lower third of the cylinder, tighten the clamp as much as possible — the tighter you screw it, the more support you’re giving your cylinder. Once satisfied that the cylinder holds your weight with the clamp around it, seal the entire shaft with duct tape so as to prevent any additional nitrogen from leaking out.
3. WD-40 and Poly-Insert Coupling
One way to stop your chair from sinking to make the sleeve’s grip on the base shaft a bit tighter. Poly-insert couplings like are good for these kinds of situations, as they sub in for the sleeve and have an overall tighter grip.
What’s more, if you wish to revive the height adjusting feature in your chair, that’s still possible with this fix. Just spray a light coating of a lubricant like WD-40 so the insert can still move to some degree along the shaft.
4. Drilling in screws
If absolutely nothing else seems to be working for you, one drastic and rather permanent solution is to drill the height into place. This is without doubt a last-resort sort of fix, that you can employ only when the next option is to just buy a new chair altogether.
Once you’ve set the chair to the height you want and marked the shaft, flip it on its back. Remove the wheels or any of the lower mechanisms so you have better access to the main cylinder. Drill a set of holes into the shaft so that they’re each exactly lined up in front of each other — the screws when inserted should be able to make a cross.
Now its time to put in the screws. It’s important to note that stripping your screws makes this design altogether permanent. Keep the grooves in if you plan on making changes later on.
Tighten all the screws into place until you feel no more movement and test the set-up by gingerly putting your weight on. If done correctly, the chair should be able to support your full weight without sinking.
Takeaway
Sinking office chairs are incredibly distracting, especially when you’re trying to pack in the work for the deadline or study for an upcoming exam. But, now that you’re prepped with these effective tips on how to fix your office chairs from sinking, even if it won’t stay up despite your very best efforts. That way, you can have your focus where it really needs to be.
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