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The chair can stop holding both a few years after its use and after 1-2 months. It depends on the intensity of its use, the quality of individual parts and fasteners, and timely repair and maintenance. Compliance with the maximum allowable load on the chair also affects: for most models, it is about 250-300 pounds. To properly fix the breakdown, it is necessary to find its causes.
To fix such a mechanism, you need to understand the principle of its action.
An office chair with the ability to change the height is equipped with a pneumatic cylinder. It provides the movement of the mechanism due to the pressure of compressed air. An integral part of such a system is the height adjustment valve, which changes the height of the seat.
The load on the valve varies depending on whether you are sitting in a chair or getting up from it. If you stand up and there is no load on the seat, when the valve is opened, air flows upward, which ensures that the seat is raised. If there is a load when the valve is open, the air will move downward, causing the chair to lower.
First, you should figure out why your chair keeps lowering. Most often, the fact is that the pressure inside the piston mechanism becomes weaker, and nitrogen comes out. After that, the chair sinks to a lower position.
This situation can occur for the following reasons:
The chair is under too much load. If you place a weight on the chair much more than the maximum allowable, the piston mechanism may break. On average, the maximum load is about 300 pounds.
You sit on the seat too abruptly. It creates a sudden overload that could cause the height adjustment system to fail.
Depreciation of machine parts. Due to long-term operation, the parts wear out, after which depressurization occurs.
Sometimes the failure is due to a manufacturing defect, but this is relatively rare. Knowing the cause of the breakdown will help you figure out how to fix a desk chair that sinks.
The first thing to understand is that fixing a broken cylinder with your own hands will not work. This element of the office chair is filled at the factory with compressed gas (nitrogen), and this procedure cannot be carried out at home. Therefore, you can either replace the cylinder or fix the chair at a certain height. The first option is preferable.
The only way to completely eliminate the breakdown and get a height-adjustable chair is to replace the cylinder. This process takes place in several stages:
Preliminary preparation. First, remove the armrests and turn the chair upside down. This will make your work more convenient.
Disassembly: Using a screwdriver, separate the seat from the piston system and then carefully remove the gas cartridge body.
Installation of a new gas lift. To do this, you will need a few screws and a screwdriver.
After installing, put the seat back on and try raising and lowering the seat using the piston system. If the movements are light and smooth, then everything works out.
This method will allow you to fix the chair in one position. It’s simple and effective, but you must adjust the height. This Saver Kit must be installed so the spacers will support the seat. It’s simple: snap enough rings onto the piston to keep the seat at the height you need. The spacers will support your body’s weight, so you will feel quite comfortable.
If the ring breaks, it can be easily replaced, so it’s best to buy a few spares right away.
If you need a quick fix for a sinking piston, a regular size 20 hose clamp can be used. You will also need duct tape. Set the desired height, wrap the hose clamp around the hose and secure it with tape. Of course, this will not completely solve the problem: after a few days, the adhesive tape will peel off and slide off. But it will give you time to buy a new piston. This method answers the question of how to stop a chair from sinking rather than how to fix it.
Another solution is to fix the cylinder in one position with a piece of PVC pipe or a plastic gasket. The PVC strip should be cut and installed on the piston. The piston will stop sinking, but there is one significant drawback: PVC is not a very strong material and can burst under a significant load.
These methods will answer how to fix a sinking office chair. It will help you troubleshoot if the height adjustment system on your office chair is not working.
If you have already experienced the need to replace the gas lift in your office chair, tips on how to extend the life of the piston will be helpful to you:
Adjust the load on the office chair and do not exceed the maximum allowable values.
Get in and out of your chair smoothly to avoid stress overloading the gas lift.
Try to minimize seat height changes. It is better to find the optimal seating position and not change it. But this is only sometimes possible since several people of different heights use the same chair (for example, in an office).
Of course, compliance with these rules does not guarantee that the office chair will last for decades, but, in any case, it will extend its life. But you already know how to fix a computer chair that keeps sinking.
In this article, you can learn about how to fix a desk chair that sinks. Most likely, this is a depressurization of the gas lift. In this case, replacing the piston is the only way to eliminate the problem. Other methods (for example, fixing the cylinder in one position with a hose and adhesive tape) are temporary measures and do not allow you to adjust the seat’s height. Replacing the gas lift is effective and simple, so it is better to choose this option.
