Guide To Furniture & Chair Feet

Welcome to the Vital Parts guide to Chair Feet, your one stop source of information when it comes to measuring, installing and finding the ideal parts for your chairs or furniture. This guide has been put together to provide insight to our customers on the world of replacement feet, and ensuring a proper fit first time.

Chair Feet, Chair Ferrules & Chair Inserts are all forms of feet used mainly with Chairs, Appliances and Furniture, acting either as replacements or as upgrades to promote grip and to prevent damage to the flooring that they are placed on. Popular inside Schools & Educational facilities, each product is suited to a long-term usage and is easily installed to your application.

Overview

1. Types of Chair Feet
2. When to use them
3. How to measure
4. How to install
5. Surface guide
6. What's available

Types of Chair Feet

Coming in two main styles these feet can be split in two based on their installation type, these being:

When to use Chair Feet

To protect a worn chair leg

As one of the most common reasons for replacing Chair Feet, having a worn leg can cause many issues when used in a public setting as they can cause major damage to a wooden or hard floor. Installing a ferrule or insert can be extremely useful in this instance, to provide refreshed levels of grip and to prevent un-necessary marking.

To prevent marking of a floor

More applicable to public or business type uses, these feet are recommended for preventing the scratching/damage of floors, and can go a long way to reduce wasted spend on refurbishment or repair. Certain options such as Rubber Ferrules come with anti marking properties from standard, to prevent them from marking.

To increase grip

Almost every product within our selection of feet provides excellent gripping properties which helps to increase stability, and prevents any potential injuries or health and safety related issues. Rubber is generally recommended for harder surfaces to add grip, with Plastic recommended for Softer types.

How to measure Chair Feet

When measuring up your object for the installation of a Chair Foot, it is important to consider the type you will be looking at, this is because measuring for internal is slightly different to external. Outlined below are the main differences between these measurements, as well as how you can go about getting them. 

*Internal type feet are matched up using Outside Diameter
**External type feet are matched up using Internal Diameter
 

Outside Diameter (OD)
Finding the outside diameter of a tube can be done by measuring the distance between its two outer walls (as pictured). The distance between these walls being the measurement which should be taken for outside diameter.

Internal Diameter (ID)
Similar to the measurement for outside diameter, finding the internal diameter of your tube is done by measuring the distance between the two inner walls (as pictured), rather than the outer measurement defined prior.

Wall Thickness
Once you have both the internal and external measurements of your tube, you can start to work out the wall thickness required for a flush fit by using the following equation:

OD – ID ÷ 2 = Wall Thickness
 

Once you have your measurements including wall thickness, you can look to match it up with our sizing provided on site. For internal fitting feet you can match up your tube outside diameter with the outside diameter of the insert, however for external fitting feet such as ferrules, you will need to match up for internal diameter rather than outside.

It should be noted that wall thickness should only really be considered if you are fitting internally, externally fitted feet should slip on no matter the wall thickness (as long as your measurement is correct).



How to install Chair Feet

Installation as you can see from the images below, is a quick and easy process that can be completed quickly by hand. With regards to inserts, these may require hitting with a hammer for a flush, secure fitting to your tube or box section.

Installing Inserts & Ferrules

Surface Guide

Useful for many, below we have separated out the best product types for each surface / flooring type, based mainly on grip related properties. Please note that it can also be down to preference as to your choice of material depending on factors such as noise.

Please note that all of our Plastic / Rubber Chair Feet products are anti marking.

What’s available for Chair Feet

Our selection of feet is applicable for all types of Chairs, Furniture & Appliances, coming in a number of different sizes and styles depending on your requirements. As one of the largest suppliers of Chair & Furniture Feet products into the UK we have a truly vast range available for all uses.

Inserts

Chair Inserts are an extremely common choice for school type chairs with tubular legs, available in a massive amount of variations and sizes for almost every possible use.

• Round Tube Inserts – Angled, Domed, Wide/Thick Base & Coloured options
• Square Tube Inserts – Angled, Domed & Coloured options
• Rectangular Tube Inserts – Angled & Standard options
• Oval Tube Inserts – Angled & Standard options

Threaded

Threaded Feet are another common choice of foot, used mainly for heavier furniture / objects where additional height or levelling is required. Available in many variations suited to different weight ratings, from 100kg all the way up to 10,000kg.

• Fixed / Articulating / Tilting styles available

Ferrules are a popular choice as an external fitting option, pushing straight on to the end of your chair or furniture leg. Coming in many heavy duty reinforced and grippy styles for all kinds of furniture, objects, chairs and appliances these are a common choice.

• Plastic Ferrules – Angled, Standard & Square options
• Rubber Ferrules – Reinforced, Crutch & Pimple Base options

Saddle

Saddle Feet are a lesser known form of chair foot, used specifically with tubular furniture to add grip and prevent the marking of flooring. As a simple to fit product, these simply clip around the tube to provide additional grip for both hard and soft flooring types.

• Tube Saddle Feet / Bases – 5 different styles
• Saddle Glides

Glides

Glides are essentially feet made to promote loss of grip, enabling quick and easy movement across hard and soft surfaces. Often used inside consumer industries to increase comfort and reduce noise, these are another extremely popular choice.

• Nail On – PTFE/Felt/Metal/Plastic
• Screw On – PTFE/Teflon/Felt
• Push In – Felt / PTFE
• Threaded – Nylon / PE

For our full variety of Chair & Furniture Feet please see the range here.

For any custom enquiries, problems or questions related to these type of feet then please feel free to contact us or give us a call on 01233 713581.