The Chair Fit and Cost Kit

The ChairBuzz method for buying a chair once: fitted to you and your desk, to the room and the doorway it comes through, and priced over the years you will really keep it

ChairBuzz's free calculators each give one honest number: a seat height, a desk height, a recliner's clearance, a cost per year, a fabric yardage. None of them meets the chair you are about to buy: its seat-height range, the room it goes in, the doorway it has to come through, or the cheaper chair it is up against. Cost per year divides by the years a chair could last, which flatters the expensive chair when you will not keep it that long. The Chair Fit and Cost Kit joins those tools into one check. Its worked sitter, 170 cm tall, has a 42.5 cm seat number, below a chair that adjusts from 44 cm; count their 74 cm desk and the seat to set is 45.1 cm, inside the range, with a 2.6 cm footrest. A recliner 38 in deep closed, opening 24 in more, with a 6 in wall gap needs 68 in from the wall, not the 46 in its seat depth suggests; a 108 in room keeps a 30 in walkway for any recliner up to 72 in reclined, and the narrowest door on the way in decides whether its back must come off. A $720 chair with a 12-year warranty is $60 a year on paper and $120 kept 6 years, against $90 for a $180 chair replaced every 2; it breaks even at 8 years, and at 20% off it still does not win over 6. Recovering four dining chairs yourself, at $280, beats new chairs a year; paying $420 of labor does not. Every worked figure is an example you replace with your own, computed by the site's calculators, and rules of thumb are called rules of thumb. It recommends no brand and makes no health claims: the seat and desk figures are comfort starting points. It carries the safety facts: power recliners and lift chairs can pinch or trap, so check under and behind before closing and keep children off an open footrest; keep the law labels on cushions and use foam sold for upholstery. 23 printable pages: seven steps, a fit card, a cost sheet, a reupholster-or-replace sheet, reference tables and a quickstart, plus a personalised sheet worked from the numbers you enter in the calculators.

Look inside

Two full pages from the kit, exactly as printed. Click either to read it at full size before you decide.

What is in it

• The Range Rule: your seat number moved by how far your desk sits above your desk number, checked against the chair's seat-height range, with the footrest that makes up the rest
• The Footprint Rule: a recliner's floor from the wall to the tip of its open footrest, and why seat depth under-states it
• The Walkway Rule: the room minus the footprint, a walkway, and the longest reclined depth to shop for
• The Doorway Rule: the chair's smallest side against the narrowest clear opening on the way in, and whether the back lifts off
• The Break-Even Rule: cost a year over the years you will keep a chair, whole chairs bought, and the break-even a pricier chair must reach
• The Deal Rule: a discount changes the price, not the years; sale prices, delivery, tax and return terms through the same sum
• The Keep Rule: reupholster or replace, with fabric to the quarter yard, foam, supplies or labor, against new chairs a year
• A printable fit card, a cost sheet and a reupholster-or-replace sheet
• Reference tables: seat and desk numbers by height, and fabric to buy by number of chairs
• A quickstart that closes the loop on your starting scores

The kit picks up where the free Chair Cost Per Year Calculator leaves off. It divides a price by the years a chair could last, which flatters the expensive chair when you will not keep it that long, and it never meets the cheaper chair, the deal, or the chair you already own. The kit counts the years you will keep a chair, works out the break-even against the cheaper one, puts every sale price through the same sum, and prices recovering what you own with the Reupholstery Fabric Calculator. Before any of that it checks the fit: your seat and desknumbers against the chair's seat-height range, a recliner's real footprint from the wall with the Recliner Clearance Calculator, a walkway, and the narrowest doorway on the way in. It carries the safety facts: power recliners and lift chairs can pinch or trap, so check that no child, pet or hand is under or behind the chair before you close it, keep children off an open footrest, and unplug a power chair or use its lock around small children; keep the law labels on cushions and use foam sold for upholstery. The seat and desk figures are comfort starting points, not treatment. The worked figures are examples; your own measurements and prices replace them.