From sales price to quality: why Dimehouse does make a difference
Obviously it has Dimehouse a focus on its selling price. Dimehouse wants to offer contemporary and stylish furniture for an extremely competitive price. Many companies position themselves with a great price-quality ratio, a bit trite, but why Dimehouse this one right?
The end goal of a quality chair is many years of seating pleasure, which is also pleasing to the eye. In this blog we explain step by step why our chairs are the best buy. For example, why our powder coat also survives outdoors, how we guarantee extra strength and why our fabrics last for many years of use.
The interior: plastic instead of wood
Of course, every chair has an interior. Bee Dimehouse Since the start of our own factory in 2018, we have had the rule that we prefer metal or plastic over wood. Wood is a great product to work with, but it can contain weaknesses. Dining room chairs with arms have carpentered frames made of chipboard-like semi-finished products. Dining room chairs without arms are often constructed from multiple layers of veneered wood.
Let's take our Beau dining room chair as an example. This bucket chair is produced by almost everyone with a wooden interior. The production works as follows;
1) The contour of the chair is drawn on veneer wood (backrest plus seat)
2) This contour is cut out seven times from wood veneer
3) The seven layers are placed on top of each other and glued together.
4) The layers of wood go into an oven, where it is bent under heat to the shape of the chair
Two possible problems arise with this production process. Firstly, not all seven layers of wood are identical, as it is handmade. This creates irregularities in the cockpit, but chairs can also differ slightly from each other. This can be extremely irritating for someone with a sharp eye. A chair with veneer layers is not indestructible, which means that a chair can break when used above 100 kg. Have you ever heard a creaking sound while sitting on a chair?
What is our solution? We have had an injection mold made and produce the interior from polypropylene (PP). This has several advantages:
1) The chair is extremely strong. The PP cannot be broken. See here a video as a fun example that is on the product page of the Beau dining room chairs.
2) The polypropylene (PP) is flexible, which gives the chair a small swing. Very comfortable.
3) The interior is always identical, no difference can arise.
You often cannot tell the quality from the outside of a chair. But now that you understand how we produce the Beau or the Barry chair, for example, you know that this is a great purchase for this amount.
The importance of good foam
Foam plays an important role. It determines comfort but also durability. Compressed foam is available to produce a chair as cheaply as possible. These are all loose flakes of foam that are stuck together. A kind of recycle version. It sounds good, but extremely unsuitable for chairs. After a short period of time, the flakes fall apart, causing the shape and comfort of the chair to disappear. It is therefore important to cover the seats with new foam blocks of the correct density. We always choose HR foam (high resilience) with a density of 35–50 kg/m³ (HR35, HR40, HR45, HR50), so that comfort is combined with sustainability.
We always place Dacron over the foam. Dacron forms a soft, protective membrane around the foam that prevents wear and dents and improves seating comfort by softening the foam edges and evenly distributing pressure. In addition, it provides a tighter finish to the upholstery and extends the lifespan of both the foam and the fabric.
High Martindale value upholstery
For decades there was a belief that artificial leather (sky) was of poor quality. And it was. Times have changed and the fabrics manufactured today are excellent. An important factor is the Martindale, the number of sitting hours of a piece of furniture. For example, with 30,000 Martindale, you could sit on that piece of furniture for 30,000 hours. We have developed a PU artificial leather with a Martindale of 60,000 sitting hours for our industrial furniture. This artificial leather is on almost all of our industrial chairs.
Powder coating and metal legs: built for years of use
The basis for metal legs is stainless steel. Even more important is the powder coating. Over the past 17 years we have tried several powder coaters and several types of coatings. Have you noticed that our dining tables are also under outdoor furniture? We have that much confidence in our powder coat. Our powder coat has an even color and optimal layer thickness for complete coverage without streaks or pits. Thanks to standard adhesion tests (cross-cut and bend) and a pencil and impact test, the coating remains strong and crack-free. With a salt spray test and MEK rubbing test we prove that it remains beautiful and corrosion-free for a long time. This way we guarantee a durable, wear-resistant and aesthetic finish.
Professionally test the firmness of our chairs yourself
Even though suppliers of semi-finished products provide guarantees about the quality of materials, we test all chairs ourselves in-house. We load the chair by constantly dropping 200kg on the chair, thus simulating a lifespan. It is important to test the vulnerable parts of the chair, for example by applying pressure where the frame bends.
Big volumes, big benefits
Because we supply to many international parties, we can purchase our materials in bulk. This also allows us to develop our own fabrics, where the minimum purchase quantities are enormous. Finally, we of course have our own production location, which ensures double quality checks. You can read about that here more.
