From sale price to quality: why Dimehouse really makes the difference
Of course, Dimehouse focuses on its sale price. Dimehouse wants to offer contemporary and stylish furniture at extremely competitive prices. Many companies position themselves with a great price-quality ratio, a bit cliché, but why does Dimehouse actually have this?
The ultimate goal of a quality chair is many years of sitting pleasure, where the eye also wants something. In this blog, we will explain step by step why our chairs are the best buy. For example, why our powder coating survives outdoors, how we guarantee extra sturdiness, and why our fabrics last for many years of sitting.
The inner structure: plastic instead of wood
Every chair naturally has an inner structure. At Dimehouse, since the start of our own factory in 2018, we have the rule that we prefer metal or plastic over wood. Wood is a great product to work with, but it can contain weaknesses. Dining chairs with arms have framed structures made of chipboard-like semi-finished products. Dining chairs without arms are often made up of multiple layers of veneered wood.
Let's take our Beau dining chair as an example. This bucket chair is produced by almost everyone with a wooden inner structure. The production works as follows;
1) The contour of the chair (backrest plus seat) is drawn on veneer wood.
2) This contour is cut out of wood veneer seven times.
3) The seven layers are stacked on top of each other and glued together.
4) The layers of wood go into an oven, where they are bent under heat to the shape of the chair.
Two potential problems arise from this production process. First, not all seven layers of wood are identical, as it is handcrafted. This creates unevenness in the bucket and chairs can also differ slightly from each other. For someone with a keen eye, that can be incredibly annoying. A chair with veneer layers is not indestructible, meaning a chair can break under use above 100kg. Have you ever heard a cracking sound while sitting on a chair?
What is our solution? We had a injection mold made and produce the inner structure from polypropylene (PP). This has several advantages:
1) The chair is extremely strong. The PP is virtually unbreakable. See here a video as a playful example that is on the product page of the Beau dining chairs.
2) The polypropylene (PP) is flexible, giving the chair a slight swing. Very comfortable.
3) The inner structure is always identical, so there can be no difference.
On the outside of a chair, you often cannot tell the quality. But now that you understand how we produce the Beau or the Barry chair, you know that this is a great purchase for this amount.
The importance of good foam
Foam plays an important role. It determines comfort as well as durability. To produce a chair as cheaply as possible, there is compressed foam. These are all loose flakes of foam that are glued together. A kind of recycled version. It sounds good, but it is extremely unsuitable for chairs. After a short period, 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 with the right 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 durability.
We always place Dacron over the foam. Dacron forms a soft, protective layer around the foam that prevents wear and denting and improves sitting comfort by softening the foam edges and distributing pressure evenly. Additionally, it provides a tighter finish of the upholstery and extends the lifespan of both the foam and the fabric.
Upholstery with high Martindale value
For decades, there was a belief that artificial leather (sky) was of poor quality. And it was. Times have changed, and the fabrics that are produced today are excellent. An important factor is the Martindale, the number of sitting hours of a piece of furniture. For example, at 30,000 Martindale, you could sit on the respective piece of furniture for 30,000 hours. For our industrial furniture, we have developed a PU artificial leather with a Martindale of 60,000 sitting hours. This artificial leather is used on almost all our industrial chairs.
Powder coating and metal legs: built for years of use
The base for metal legs is stainless steel. Even more important is the powder coating. Over the past 17 years, we have tried multiple powder coaters and various types of coatings. Have you noticed that our dining tables are also listed under outdoor furniture? We have so much confidence in our powder coat. Our powder coat has a uniform color and optimal thickness for complete coverage without streaks or pits. Thanks to standard adhesion tests (cross-cut and bending) and a pencil and impact test, the coating remains strongly adhered and crack-free. With a salt spray test and a MEK rub test, we prove that it stays beautiful and corrosion-free for a long time. This guarantees a durable, abrasion-resistant, and aesthetic finish.
Test the sturdiness of our chairs professionally yourself
Although 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 onto it, simulating a lifespan. It is important to test the vulnerable parts of the chair by applying pressure on the spot where the frame bends.
Large volumes, large benefits
Because we supply many international parties, we can purchase our materials in large quantities. This also allows us to develop our own fabrics, where the minimum orders are enormous. Lastly, we of course have our own production facility, which means double quality checks. You can read more about that here.
