Office chairs with rolling wheels are very comfortable, but they are a risk for your hardwood floor.
More and more people are setting up a small home office in their own homes bacause of the pandemic.
Office chairs allow us to turn around and move back and forth with our feet and without having to stand up, but their movement damages the floor.
Wooden and marble floors are particularly at risk.
Don't rely on the hardness of your floor - before you scratch your parquet and create a dull stain on freshly sanded and polished marble, protect it with a chair mat.
Do not believe that ceramic floors are immune to wear and tear caused by office chairs.
Office chair mats
Of course, hardwood floors, like wooden tables, have a charm and warmth that gives every home an atmosphere that cannot be achieved with any other material.
On the other hand, they are particularly delicate and require care and attention that is difficult to implement when you don't have much time to devote to your home, so, although loved by everyone, they continue to be a solution adopted by few.
Parquet and hardwood floors wear out and are easily scratched as soon as you move: wheelchairs, heels and frequent treading ruin the surface of the wooden floor.
Unfortunately, office chairs and armchairs use rigid plastic castors which, moreover, do not have a very high degree of mobility; this is a good thing because otherwise the chair would tend to slide off too easily, but nevertheless these small castors generate more friction.
Office chair mats cover the floor around a workstation and the movements that are normally carried out with office chairs.
They are made of transparent polyethylene, recyclable and odourless, very resistant and protect the floor from wear and tear.
Of course, it cannot be said that they beautify the floor, but they certainly save us very expensive sanding costs.
They adhere perfectly to the floor thanks to a special non-slip film and are equipped with a sliding edge, which allows the swivel chairs to slide in and out of the perimeter without jolting or jumping. All this is contained in a thickness of less than 2 millimetres.
In the same way as there are floor covers, there are also carpet covers.
On these materials, moving an office chair is particularly difficult and the hair mat has a dual function: to protect the carpet or rug and to provide a smooth surface on which office chairs with castors can move.
Nb: Do not forget to move the carpets from time to time, as wood is a living material and light affects its colouring. If the carpets stay in one place for a long time, there is a risk of having different coloured areas on our parquet floor.
Rubber chair casters
Despite their many advantages, desk chairs also have a major disadvantage: that of ruining the floor.
It is for this reason that the choice of chair must be carefully considered.
That means not only considering the upper part, but also the lower part: the castors.
Trying out the office chair is essential, even if you won't be able to stand on it long enough to understand its comfort over a long period of time.
Similarly, don't just check that the castors slide well, try to imagine what the effect of prolonged use on the floor might be.
Pay attention to the quality of the castors because a lot depends on them:
- smooth sliding
- possibility of damaging the floor
- noise
I have already written about the importance of buying a floor protector together with the office chair.
There is no floor that is free-risk when desk chairs have hard plastic castors.
I can tell you that even porcelain stoneware, one of the hardest and most durable floor materials, can be abraded by the sliding of these castors.
So, stop and think what the effect might be on parquet, marble, resin and many other materials that, on paper, are much more at risk than porcelain stoneware.
If the office chair you have chosen has hard plastic castors, you can always customise it later by purchasing soft rubber castors separately.