Smart Way to Buy Bad Church Chairs!

How to Buy Bad Church Chairs

• Buy for cheapness not quality (Good stewardship gone mad.)
• Pick your favorite fabric colour or pattern (Are you buying drapes or chairs? You don’t sit on drapes we hope but you DO sit on chairs for hours every year!)
• Listen to a salesperson warn you about another company’s chairs with no proof (Believing every salesman who runs down the chairs of another company with no evidence is a scare tactic.)
• Ask where they are made (Not HOW they are made. There is junk made in China and excellent products made in China. (Apple products as are made in China! There is junk made in North America and quality made in North America.)
• Do not bother about what materials are used for the seat and back (After all, why not just buy some logs from the forest and debark them? Only sissies need comfort!
• Do not bother to check into what chairs to buy until you only have a few weeks left to get them! (Apply the brakes about 20 feet from a red light. Ya! Save money for retirement when you are 60 or so. Do NOT start when young. Live it up. Have fun!)
• Ask the dealer for a quote price and buy from the dealer who gives you the lowest price. (That shows that you think all chairs are alike and only price matters.)

We have all heard of optical illusions and sometimes been tricked by them. When buying chairs, you might ALSO be tricked into buying a chair that appears to be cheaper or just as good for less money than the chairs we sell.

Sadly I know two local churches on whose beautiful-looking chairs I have had occasion to sit. After about 30 – 40 minutes, I had to get up and go out in the hall to rest my aching seat and back! Why was there a problem? They looked great!

No one can see the foam upon which you sit. It is covered with beautiful fabric! But the foam makes or breaks a comfortable chair.

There are various grades of foam and if the cheapest soft or single density foam is used, in due time the foam will be compressed enough that your seat bottoms out so to speak after so many minutes. That’s what happened in the seats referred to above.

If the church had compared chairs, obtained a demo chair from us and any competitor and tried both out they would have noticed quite a difference. CTS chairs and BRCF chairs use dual-density foams which at first might even seem too hard but if you remain sitting for a few m ore minutes it gradually takes the sha pe of the sitter’s posterior and feels, oh so comfortable!

How much did either of those churches save? $5, $10 per chair, maybe? How long do you expect to keep your chairs? Do you expect to replace them every 5, 10 or 15 years? Or would you expect them to last until the next generation, (usually considered to be about 25 years) takes over the running of the church?

Our family had the same experience with a beautiful hunter green couch with beautiful wood showing on the arms, quilted so beautifully, we fell in love with it. But after about 5 years, I had to put a board underneath the seat cushions just to keep from sagging too far down. In talking with an upholstery shop he told me what I have just told you about various qualities of foam. At the time, now many years ago he said that for $200 he would put in the right foam.

But wouldn’t it be better just to put in the RIGHT foam to start with??? We were fooled by the beautiful fabric. The expression “beauty is only skin deep” or “beauty is only fabric deep” might apply for the types of furniture experienced above.

The chairs we sell have frames that should last 25 years and beyond, foam and fabric that should last 10 years, or 15 years at least if cold-cured foam is used for less than $4 per chair? In other words, for $4 more per chair, would it be worth having the seat last at least another 5 years?

Now unless our chairs get very hard use, they should last a lot longer than the warranty of 25 years on the frame, and 10 years each on the fabric and foam.

Essential Factors

The factors below should be used to compare various chairs before purchase to make sure you have the best quality for the lowest price possible.

• Cost
• Comfort
• Storage Space Required
• Durability
• Aesthetics
• Handling
• Functionality

PLEASE! Do your homework! You want the chairs to last at least until the next generation takes over the church!

CFC offers a demo program where you can pay 1/2 the cost of shipping by Fedex and get a chair usually in the colour you are considering to try for comfort and comparison purposes. The chair is free. You just pay half the cost of shipping.

If you really want to compare two of our chairs you pay the full cost of shipping the second chair, but still not charge for the chair.

As of December 2015 our cost for Demo 1 is $40 plus tax and for a second chair, Demo 2, $80. I would call that cheap insurance!

Construction Factors – Download sheet by clicking the link Chair-Construction-Comparison.