The different between office furniture and home office furniture.
When looking at office furniture its important that you know the differences between residential and commercial furniture.
Commercial Furniture.
One of the main differences is commercial furniture goes through a lot more testing than residential. Companies want to invest in office furniture and not replace it every two years because its broken. Most of our desks come with a minimum of 2 years guarantee, please ask if you wish to know this at the time of buying your office furniture. Some of the desks we supply come with 8 years, this depends on the brand and structure of the desk. You'll probably find commercial furniture comes in standard colours, like grey, white and oak. Offices will buy furniture with the hope that it lasts years and years, so will keep away from current trends.
Office chairs...…. there's a massive difference in office chairs that you may find in the home compared to at work. One being the different options you have buying a commercial office chair. A lot of our chairs are ergonomic chairs, this means that its shape is built to fit your body. You can add in Lumbar support, Thoracic support, coccyx cut out, options of high back, or seat slides all add to the comfort of your office chair.
Another difference for commercial fabrics is the testing. Fire retardancy is tested and passed for commercial use, including ignition tests.
Fabrics will go through abrasion testing and should test to a high Martindale, this means that the fabric won't wear away. The fabric maybe tested to colour fastness to light, If your office chair is placed next to a window you don't want it to be a different colour to the rest of the office after a year. (you may notice that your sofa at home is a different colour one side to the other when placed in direct sunlight). Some fabrics are also tested to chlorine (bleachable), we don't recommend that you use bleach on your office furniture, however some fabrics are tested to this level of cleaning. (always check with the fabric supplier)
Residential furniture
Residential furniture is usually cheaper than commercial, and there's various reasons why. One of the main reasons is that it doesn't have to pass as much testing as commercial furniture. Home office desks are generally smaller, and are made with current trends in mind, you don't want your office at home to look like your office at work. A lot of people also don't want to pay out for expensive office furniture. Its not somewhere you want to spend all of your time and you'd rather a nice sofa to lounge on than a nice desk!
With regards to office chairs though, we really try and encourage a good ergonomic chair whether its at home or at the office. Its just as important to sit correctly, and an ergonomic chair can reduce a lot of health risks, including back pains and headaches.
Although fabrics will go through testing for residential use, the testing standards do differ to that of a commercial standard. For example the Martindale (rub) test will be done to a lower count. If you work from home full time, we would recommend that you use a commercial office chair, rather than something you could buy off the shelf at a local store.
Please let us know if we can help with your decision on what to buy at home or the office.
We like to work with the best office furniture manufacturers available, so from office seating manufacturers in Northamptonshire to office furniture manufacturers in Lithuania, we have access to them all. This means we can bring the best in office furniture designs direct to you at fantastic prices.
