With the sea of choices of upholstery available for office chairs it can be both daunting and confusing when making a final choice.

There are several factors to look into and this will be influenced by your own situation.

When all you want is something that will work with most office environments you won’t go far wrong with black or dark gray fabric.

Fabrics are available in a wide range of colors, both plain and patterned, try and avoid very bright or boldly patterned fabrics unless you really want to make a statement. Plains and lightly patterned fabrics work well in most offices.

Presuming that you plan your chair to last for several years it’s also a good idea to check the durability of the fabric, see if you can find a fabric with a high rub count as it will last longer.

It’s also a good idea to see if the fabric comes with some form of soil protection treatment as it makes it a lot easier to clean and maintain the material’s appearance.

In the next post I’ll examine some of the other finishes you might want to look into.

Unsurprisingly the majority of office chairs are made to suit the average person, although what is average is open to wide interpretation.

When you’re between 5 foot 6 inches and 6 foot you’re unlikely to have trouble adjusting your office chair seat height properly.

When you fall outside this height range you may not be so lucky. People less than 5 foot 5 inches frequently find that they can’t rest their feet squarely on the floor, even with the chair set at its lowest level.

On the other hand, when you’re over 6 foot the opposite problem can occur, here your knees and upper legs end up pointing upwards which is both uncomfortable and bad for the posture.

Quite often the issue can be solved relatively easily by changing the standard pneumatic gas lift for one with either a lower or higher lift range. Try contacting your chair supplier and see if they can help.

For the smaller built person using an adjustable footrest can often sort this problem.

Sometimes when you’re working at your computer you may not want your chair back to recline, but be there to support your back. However, maybe you’ve struggled to find out how to stop your chair from reclining, there could be a couple of reasons for this.

First, check if your chair has a tilt tension adjuster because it may be that you just need to set it to offer more resistance when you lean back. Take a peek underneath the chair is there a knurled knob under the center of the seat? If so, try turning it clockwise to increase the tension.

Alternatively, you can often find a lever under the chair that simply locks the back off in a pre-set position. But, very basic office chairs may only have a wheel at the base of the back that when tightened will partially lock the back, but not very effectively.

As a rule you should avoid sitting in a fixed position for extended periods of time, so try and set the back up to suit your weight if you can as this will encourage healthy movement.

If none of this works you may need to think about replacing your chair, this article covers the essentials of successful office chair selection.

I’ve just added a new review of the Steelcase Think® chair.

Steelcase has been quietly adding some great ergonomic office chairs to its seating range over the last few years and the Think® is a worthy addition.

Office chairs have improved enormously in the last 20 years or so, as many new ergonomically designed seats have been introduced, however there is still one type of office chair widely available that is just not good for your postural health.

This is what is known in the trade as a one piece shell chair, I prefer to call them one piece hell chairs! With this type of chair the seat and back are either constructed as or remain fixed in a single piece.

Consequently, it isn’t possible to adjust the back and seat angle independently, all the user can do is alter the overall angle of the chair, but the back and seat remain fixed at a constant angle.

This is not a good idea for people who work in their office chair for long hours each day.

Twice recently in technical magazines I’ve seen articles on control rooms where likely $1 million or more has been spent on high tech equipment and in both cases the poor operators were sat in one piece hell chairs. Pity their backs after a 12 hour shift.

You’ll often find this type of seat in high end management chairs, frequently in leather and costing hundreds of dollars.

I suspect one of the reasons for their continued popularity is because they look big, important or luxurious, much like lounge chairs on wheels.

So, if you’re looking to replace your office chair, avoid these types of chair, your back will thank you.

Hopefully your office chair allows you to adjust the chair’s tension to match with your body weight.

When you’ve got things correctly you should be able to lean back in to your chair comfortably without applying excessive pressure or conversely feeling as though you’re suddenly sinking right back with little or no resistance.

So what’s involved in setting it up? With most office chairs you’ll find a knurled knob midway under the seat pad. Normally, you turn it clockwise to increase the tension and stiffen resistance or anti-clockwise to reduce the resistance.

Just experiment until you get it set to your liking.

Some more sophisticated ergonomic office chairs have a crank control on the side of the chair that actually makes it easier to adjust.

Tilt tension is just 1 of the 5 essential features that an office chair needs, to discover the other 4 see this article on what you need an ergonomic office chair to include.

It remains a fact of life that more often than not in life you get what you pay for and office chairs are no exception.

When you go into your local office supplies warehouse, chances are that you’ll be bombarded with cheap chairs, usually leather, full of sleek promises and features. It almost seems too good to be true and more often than not - it is.

Here’s a at rule of thumb to apply to any office chair you’re tempted to buy.

Ask the question. How long is it guaranteed for?

If it’s 2 years or less, walk on by. Most reputable suppliers offer 5 years at least, the top suppliers frequently will give you 12 years warranty. There’s a reason for this they’re confident that the product will last that long, imagine what it would cost them in returns if the product doesn’t perform.

Good quality office chairs are priced in hundreds of dollars, rather than tens of dollars because quality components aren’t cheap.

Here are a couple of good articles on what makes a quality office chair and how to buy an ergonomic office chair before you jump in and part with your hard earned cash.

From time to time chair users find that their office chair just won’t recline, this can be really frustrating as well as uncomfortable - so what happened?

A lot of office chairs have a synchro tilt mechanism which provides resistance as you lean back. These mechanisms often have 3 or 4 positions n which the chair back can be locked off at a set back angle.

Chances are the lever or knob that controls this is set in the locked position. First, try the height adjustment handle, see if you can pull it away from the chair stem a little. On a lot of office chairs this handle will prevent the chair back from moving when it is pushed in.

Others have a separate lever which is often in a similar position to the height adjuster on the opposite side of the chair. If that isn’t the case, see if you can find any other controls under the office seat and try moving them up and down, side to side or in and out and you should find a way to release it.

It’s important that you select the right type of office chair caster for your seat.

As standard, office chairs come fitted with casters for use on carpeted floors and they are generally hard nylon.

For hardwood floors you will need a different type of caster and these are usually soft rubber or polypropylene.

For better quality chairs you can usually specify them when ordering. With an existing office chair try contacting the supplier to see what they recommend, alternatively this site has 13 different types of office chair caster and can probably help.

If all else fails you may need to purchase a chair mat to place under your desk, the cheap clear plastic ones aren’t very good and tend to bubble up with use.

Snapmat offer an excellent range of quality chair mats, they aren’t cheap though but they’ll last for years.

Sometimes you may find that your office chair has a loose gas lift post.

This is quite common with new office chairs and usually causes a problem when you lift the chair and the 5 star base falls off. Occasionally, the top half of the chair comes away from the gas lift strut.

This is usually quite an easy problem to solve, here’s what to do.

Wipe any oil off the end of the gas stem and inside of the hole it goes into and place the gas lift back in position.

Next, gripping the chair arms with your hands raise one leg and use you knee to push down firmly on the seat pad a couple of times. You can also just sit down heavily in the chair a couple of times if you prefer.

By doing this the pressure you applied will force the bottom of the post into the base and wedge it in position. It’s designed to be an interference fit, which is to say that the two components need to bind together and so lock into each other.

Once they’re wedged in place you should have no further problems.