Question for professional chair engineers

bainbridge · 12 Jun 2020 at 20:02

Can I store an office chair upside down without fear of hydraulic fluid going everywhere?

Also will regular upside down storage mess up the delicate equilibrium and turn my chair into a sinker?

We've just moved and I'm working from home on the dining table during the day and storing the office chair in the garage after work, the garage is chockablock and I'd like to store the chair overnight just inside the garage door on a big box.

Thanks

JonJ678 · 13 Jun 2020 at 00:25

I think the answer has to be "it's fine". Though I don't make desk chairs for money.

The chair doesn't weigh as much as the person, so upside down compression from self weight isn't a problem.

The chair mechanism is either springs, which won't care, or pneumatic (conceivably hydraulic) which has to be sealed well enough to handle people sitting on it, which likewise exerts more force in all directions than turning it upside down.

Finally chairs get shipped around and stored in warehouses, and no one trusts people to follow the this-way-up sticker on boxes, so designing one that breaks if stored upside down just wins extra RMA costs.

Conceivably oil pooling at one end could be bad for wear & tear, but I totally ignore that for the compressor in a dehumidifier which is way more fragile and showing no signs of damage.

arknor · 13 Jun 2020 at 00:31

if it could leak out wouldnt it do that when someone sits on it because of the force exerted on whatever is inside the cylinder.

I always assumed it was just air inside?

bainbridge · 13 Jun 2020 at 06:05

Thanks for the replies, I'll start storing it upside down overnight. My employers will replace it if need be but I was just wondering.