So Office Chairs, an important bit of kit!

[wombar]

I started my own business about 18 months ago (web development) which involves me sitting in my chair for pretty much most of the working day. Did about 4 months in a cheap £35 chair from Viking and then took the plunge with a brand new chrome aeron.

Has to be the absolute best purchase I've ever made (closely followed by the 30" Dell monitor), I can sit in it all day long in absolute comfort (as long as you sit in it properly). As I'm sitting at my PC all day, I would rather spend £800 on a supportive, comfortable chair than £800 on chiropracters fees because I didn't want to spend some money on a decent chair.

There are a lot of alternatives out there, I looked at quite a few, but none of them fit the criteria quite like the Aeron for me. Plus if you buy new you get a 10 year warranty, I had a creak develop in my chair and they came out to fix it twice

[burble]

I'm a big fan of Aerons, they're expensive but I figured that I spend a lot of time sitting at my desk so it was worth the investment.

[toolsong]

And how much will you be spending? just out of interest

I had been thinking about one of the ex-office ones available on eBay for £400 delivered with 12 month warranty.

Just found these new cheaper models http://www.spaceff.com/mirra_chair.htm from £350 del and http://www.spaceff.com/new_celle_chair.htm from £300 del.

12 year warranty for original buyer is very appealing but will def try to test drive these other models somewhere in London.

[toolsong]

I'm a big fan of Aerons, they're expensive but I figured that I spend a lot of time sitting at my desk so it was worth the investment.

Exactly, it's like buying a great mattress for your bed

[Marcos]

I had been thinking about one of the ex-office ones available on eBay for £400 delivered with 12 month warranty.

Just found these new cheaper models http://www.spaceff.com/mirra_chair.htm from £350 del and http://www.spaceff.com/new_celle_chair.htm from £300 del.

12 year warranty for original buyer is very appealing but will def try to test drive these other models somewhere in London.

gonna consider it

[burble]

Exactly, it's like buying a great mattress for your bed

That was the justification I used at the time to keep my girlfriend from going nuts when she saw how much I'd spent on the chair

[Marcos]

If i really can get one for £300 then thats not unrealistic, i do spend a ridiculous amount of time sitting down anyway so i should be able to justify £1000+ chair, but just cant afford it

How long do they realistically last? And do HM really come and fix anything that goes wrong with them in the 10yrs?

[wombar]

A brand new graphite Aeron is £695 and the chrome one is £875 from here:

http://www.homeworkingsolutions.co.uk/fastaeron.cfm

Great service from those guys btw, you can have a chair within 48 hours usually if you're near the M25.

I think the warranty is staggered which means only certain parts of the chair are covered for 10 years. The things that are likely to wear out quicker (i.e. the mesh and arm pads) are only covered for something like 2 years, the gas lifter is 3 I think and the main frame is 10 years. You can read up on it on the HM website.

For me, I like to buy brand new and wanted the warranty because I'm one of the most unlucky people you'll ever meet when it comes to things just breaking.

Regarding the warranty, I do a lot of recording and the chair was squeaking when I reclined which was becoming increasingly annoying when it came out on recording. I called them up and HM sent out an engineer twice to take the chair apart and eventually replaced the swivel mechanism. Although to be honest, for a chair that cost me ~£900, I should hope so too.

There's not a whole lot of stuff that can go wrong other than the gas lifter which is meant to be pretty expensive. You should be able to pick one up at a second hand office shop or ebay for between £350 - £400 I think though don't quote me on that. The thing you have to remember with these chairs is that at this price point, it's something you're going to keep for a long time. My brother has had an Aeron since 1999 that is still going strong and if it broke, he'd get it repaired or buy another. Seriously, if you spend a long time at your computer, get a good chair. Either spend the money now, or spend it later on a chiropracter (sp?)

[trusz]

Wow, those chairs are pretty expensive. Maybe when I have a decent job!

I am in need of a new chair as the one I have had for about 4 years now has jammed the tilt mechanism upright and it's a little too straight up for me. If I want to relax in it and slump a bit, it makes my back ache the next day. It's a mesh chair which I have found amazingly comfortable yet supportive. I used to easily spend all day in it without a problem.

I've been looking at this http://www.chairsupermarket.co.uk/pr.../Mesh%20Chairs

I quite like the look of it. It's a few steps up from my old chair. Has any one else got a similar chair? What do you think of yours?

[Marcos]

Wow, those chairs are pretty expensive. Maybe when I have a decent job!

I am in need of a new chair as the one I have had for about 4 years now has jammed the tilt mechanism upright and it's a little too straight up for me. If I want to relax in it and slump a bit, it makes my back ache the next day. It's a mesh chair which I have found amazingly comfortable yet supportive. I used to easily spend all day in it without a problem.

I've been looking at this http://www.chairsupermarket.co.uk/pr.../Mesh%20Chairs

I quite like the look of it. It's a few steps up from my old chair. Has any one else got a similar chair? What do you think of yours?

Thats halfway to a HM chair. i'm really getting sold on the idea of spending more now

[Marcos]

I just called those spaceff guys up, sounds brilliant, a full spec Celle chair is £350 delivered

considering i go through ne of those cheap £40 chairs in one year, it actually works out good value if they do last a decade, not to mention the good it'll do for my back

[Gordy]

I made mine

[Lee H]

Gordy.

That is ace! - it looks extremely comfy as well

[Merlin4458]

looks like an aeroplane seat, how do u fit in that? I jsut found out that im sitting in an aeron lumber? only been here 2 months, and love it tbh. quite expensive though... and would look stupid in my sudent flat

[Gordy]

Gordy.

That is ace! - it looks extremely comfy as well

Yeah it's very comfy!

looks like an aeroplane seat, how do u fit in that? I jsut found out that im sitting in an aeron lumber? only been here 2 months, and love it tbh. quite expensive though... and would look stupid in my sudent flat

It's a cobra clubman car seat which I modified to fit the base of my existing chair. You can buy them ready done, but its far more expensive that way.

[acrobat]

Well I have a skinny bony arse (never started a conversation with that before), and often I use a computer for looooong periods of time. If im working on it, I can be using it all day. And in the evenings I often play games and/or watch a film. So I can be sitting for hours and hours. My old chair was crap and by bum got really sore, so I saw a cheap one in Tesco! of all places. It was just 30 odd quid for a big leather chair.

It was pretty well made, quite big and sturdy, so it was great for sitting in, and it had more padding on the chair bit for my bony bum. But the problem was... it had plastic arm rests with no padding, and I found my elboes got really sore because I rested my elboes on it when I was typing and using the mouse and stuff.

So I went to Cost Co with a plan to buy some black masking tape, and then I was going to tape some foam to the arms... But when I was there, I saw this amazing office chair. It was about £99 quid which scared me, and I went there with the intention to spend about 5 quids... but I just figured I should buy it anyway and not be a cheapskate for once in my life, and I'm really glad I did.

Its dead comfy, it lets you control how easy it is to rock back and forth, and you can lock it in place if you want. It goes up and down etc. The arse part is really soft and padded, so I can sit on it all day and not feel like the base of my spine has been beaten with a bassball bat, the back is high enough for me to sit back and properly relax in it when watching a film, the arm rests are really padded so I can rest my elboes on them all day and they support my arms when Im playing counterstrike or whatever. And lastly, its a dark reddish leather, so it looks really srubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishy.

Well recommended. Cost Co is the place to go if you want something like that. This chair is called Model 6486. Item# 89314

Its ace. There was also one for about £120 which had a higher back. I wish I got that one now instead, but I'm happy with this anyway, and because I'm so short, my head is still supported when I sit back in this anyway. But I'm starting to learn the benefits of not being a cheap arse now. You pay more, but usually that just means whatever you buy is much better, and lasts much longer, so is probably just as good value as buying cheap stuff all the time.