How to Purchase with Confidence
By: Ben Hubbard and Steve Stoneman

Today, more churches than ever are discovering the benefits of the multi-functional sanctuary chair. Unfortunately, however, churches can sometimes make uninformed buying decisions and get saddled with inferior-quality products. The following is a quick rundown on features that the savvy purchaser needs to be aware of when making their seating decision.

Seat Support
A key element in structural integrity is the support that rests out of view, under the seat. A quality chair will have supplemental support under its seat in the form of a steel strap or a steel tube. This adds extra strength to the wood foundation that lies just under the foam. Without this extra support, the full weight of the chair's occupant is placed upon the wooden foundation alone, which may lead to its premature failure.

Leg Support
Due to the side thrust that chairs endure as people shift in their seat or lean to one side, it is important that the legs on your chairs are properly strengthened. Some manufacturers address this by installing bars that connect the legs from side to side. These range in structure from being a simple wire to a full tube with box welds. The presence of these components distributes the forces to the whole chair, similar to bridge construction.

Back Design
The back supports of many sanctuary chairs that are available in the modern marketplace are constructed with individual posts. When a person sits in a chair of this design, these back posts can flex independently, transferring all the stress to the wood fastening hardware, which may ultimately result in failure. Higher-grade chairs feature steel-connected or full loop, one-piece backs that offer advanced support, proven to be more durable over time.

Steel Size and Composition
This area is often overlooked by purchasers. Due to the influx of imported chairs, the market is flooded with products that are of inferior tube size or use poor-quality steel that was previously rejected for other uses.

When purchasing your chairs, be sure that you specify that high-carbon steel is required. Without a lengthy explanation, 1008/1010 is the minimum--1010 is best. Steel is actually certified for every run, so it is possible to find out this number. This will ensure that the steel in your product is not "soft," which could lead to premature frame failure under heavy use.

Steel thickness is also important. Steel is measured in gage size--the smaller the gage number, the thicker the steel. A minimum of 18 gage should be used. Also, a minimum size of 13/16-inch square tubular steel should be used for the chair back construction, with a 1-inch-square tubular steel minimum used for the legs. In summary, steel quality, thickness and size all contribute to the structural integrity of the chair. Do not make your decision on one factor alone.

Welding
A quality chair will unconditionally never be constructed with short spot welds. Before purchasing, you should make sure that the chair that you are considering features box welds. These are longer welds that are welded in two different planes. This prevents any one weld from actually becoming a potential hinge joint that can fatigue and fail. Another element that should be considered is the number of welds on the chair. Look for a chair that has multiple welds at all tube junctions. Don't be afraid to remove cushions on your sample chair to examine for proper placement of necessary welds.

Powdercoating
The final element to a quality chair frame is its finish. Most manufacturers have begun to powdercoat their chairs for a more durable finish; however, some are more particular about it than others. For example, a top-notch chair will be fully coated, even in the places that you can not easily see. This prevents rust from forming, thus prolonging the life of the product. Be diligent in your comparisons, and don't accept a chair that hasn't been fully powdercoated. Again, dissect your sample chair to see if shortcuts have been taken!

Seat/Back Cushions
Here is something that may surprise you--soft seat cushions are bad. Think about it. Regardless of promises, foam does break in over time under regular use, so what is soft today will be completely flat within a couple of years. So, to counter this issue, make sure that your chairs are equipped with 100 percent pure urethane, high-density foam cushions that feel firm when they are new. You will get many more years of comfortable use out of these cushions than you would with their softer counterparts.
           
Another key consideration here is fire safety. Many manufactures are not using fire-retardant foam or fabrics. This has become an important requirement in many jurisdictions or for facilities wishing to minimize liability in the event of a fire. Fire-retardant standards exist for both individual components and for chairs as a whole.

Upholstery
There are more upholstery options out there than a purchaser would dare to think about. Of course, upholstery choice will be heavily dependent upon the style that the purchaser wishes to adhere to, but one should also give both durability and fire safety thought here as well. Quality upholsteries will typically have longer warranties and higher abrasion

resistance scores. It is also a good idea to keep stain repellency in mind, particularly if the space in which the chairs are to be used will be multi-functional.

Cushion Foundation
Beneath the cushions on a chair lies a platform of supportive material (most often a pressed board or engineered wood product) that gives the cushion shape as well as support. At the low end of the scale in both cost and strength is pressed board or variations thereof. These are made of paper and wood dust or particles that are pressed and glued together. At the high end of the scale will be plywood and engineered wood that is made of laminated sheets or fibers of wood that is also glued together. There is also an engineered product called Novaply, which is very popular in the furniture industry. Although it may look like a particle board, it is truly an engineered product that has superior screw holding qualities, and it lacks the voids or holes commonly present in plywood products. Engineered wood products are also used in construction such as flooring and walls, so it goes without saying that they have superior strength. Again, the presence of a support tube under the seat adds support.

Foot Glides/Stacking Buttons
These are the finishing touches on a chair that are generally not given much thought. Foot glides range from inexpensive plastic caps of various shapes to commercial, high-durability, adjustable-angle, booted glides. The latter have an internal spring clip that holds them in place as well as a "boot" that surrounds the rough edge of the steel at the bottom of the leg. They are available with a vinyl foot that hugs carpeting tightly for stable positioning or metal chrome feet for easy sliding on carpet.
           
Low-profile stacking buttons are generally preferred since they are harder to accidentally knock out of the chair while in use. Stack buttons that stick out from the frame expose themselves to being knocked or torn free, which will make chair stacking uneven and unsafe if they are not replaced.

With the rise in the number of products that are being imported into the United States, as well as various domestic companies coming into the market, there are numerous sanctuary seating choices. All chairs are not created equal. A low price tag or a claim of quality doesn't mean that the product is worth your while. Take your time, review your sample chairs, research your potential vendors and make sure that you are getting what you are paying for. You will thank yourself for years to come.

Ben Hubbard is the sales manager and Steve Stoneman is president of Carstone Seating, www.carstone.com.

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Five Tips for Selecting a Pew Manufacturer
By Bruce Boyers

Many church leaders have braved the task of ensuring that pews will be attractive and fit into the overall visual theme of a sanctuary, that they will be arranged for optimum line-of-sight and hearing, and that they will provide adequate comfort for the duration of a service. Gained through the experience of some of those who have come before, here are some tips on the choice, acquisition and installation of those all-important pews.

1. Choose a manufacturer with an understanding and specialty in church pews.
While at first glance a church pew may be a simple undertaking for any experienced carpenter, there are many aspects to pew design and placement that make it the better province of experts. Yes, a pew is essentially an elongated wooden bench, but as anyone engaged in the building of a sanctuary will tell you, numerous questions can arise right at the outset. You need to select a company with this particular type of experience.

2. Choose a manufacturer that understands the science of pew design.
There is a science of pew design, and that science begins with structural integrity. It might be assumed that solid wood, being the traditional pew material, would be the ultimate in pew end design. But solid wood has many detriments, the chief among them being that it expands and contracts from heat, cold and humidity, causing it to crack, split and warp. More modern advances have brought pew ends to be manufactured of plywood and MDF (medium-density fiberboard) with veneers of hardwood. This combination brings the beauty of hardwood to sanctuary pew design with far better stability and allows the manufacturer to warrantee the pews for the life of the building.  

3. Have your manufacturer work directly with the builder and, if possible, the architect.
Since your pew manufacturer will be working hand-in-glove with your building contractor, it is vitally important they form a mutual understanding and are able to work together. While it is not always possible to have an architect name the manufacturer right in the church building plans, it will greatly assist up the line if the architect can coordinate with the pew manufacturer at the outset. This will ensure that what is laid out in the plans is actually what gets installed in the church, and that what gets installed in the church is what the customer wanted. 

4. Choose a pew manufacturer that is flexible and can change on the fly.
If the architect and the pew manufacturer cannot coordinate from the beginning, it well behooves a church to choose a manufacturer that can be flexible when needed. Many architect errors are not committed through malice; the building codes and issues involved would only be familiar to someone who works with pew manufacture on a regular basis. Hence, having someone working with a church builder who has traveled this road many times is a considerable advantage. 

5. Choose a manufacturer that can deliver the exact pews you ordered, and on time.
In order to complete the building of a church on time and accurately, it is important to choose a company that is reliable and will deliver the exact items you ordered on time, so that crucial first service goes on as scheduled.

It takes the right furnishings to create the ideal sanctuary, and assistance from an expert in the manufacture and placement of pews will ensure the building is completed on time, and exactly as the builders specified it.

Bruce Boyers is a technical writer based in Glendale, California. For information about Imperial Woodworks—a provider of pews, chairs, pulpits, Communion tables and re-upholstery services—visit www.imperialww.com.