Unless you are a sadist in a position of authority, you probably don’t like rules. But sometimes rules are needed. No one likes being told that they have to drive slower than they want, but most of us are glad when one neighbor calls the police on another neighbor who, at 3 am, is playing music loud enough to loosen your dental work.
Shower chairs are currently a little like the Wild West where there ain’t no rules, pardner. Customers like saving money and they like furniture that is light-weight and easy to move. Manufacturers are happy to accommodate both of these customer desires, but this can result in chairs that are flimsy, underbuilt, and sometimes dangerous.
Alpine Engineering & Design has been involved with multiple investigations into what went wrong when someone was injured because their shower chair collapsed. During subsequent testing, representative models of all of these chairs failed under what seemed like relatively small loads. How much load should the chairs have been able to support?
I searched high and low to find standards that apply to shower chairs. BIFMA has standards that apply to office chairs and the ADA has standards that apply to permanently installed shower seats, but I found no standards that apply specifically to shower chairs. The chairs we have tested failed at loads much smaller than the loads required for office chairs or permanently installed shower seats. Are the loads on shower chairs smaller than on office chairs or permanent seats?
The Consumer Products Safety Commission has records of quite a few people being injured on collapsing shower chairs. Because people are being hurt and because no standards directly apply, I reached out to ASTM International about starting one. We are now working on gathering people to be on the subcommittee to make a standard specifically for shower chairs. Ideally, this subcommittee will include:
- Shower chair designers
- Shower chair manufactures
- People that test shower chairs
- Occupational therapists
- Biomechanical engineers
- Users of shower chairs
We need a diverse group to ensure that the new standard will improve safety while still allowing shower chairs to be functional, reasonably light-weight and inexpensive. If you are one of the people above and are interested in being part of making a new standard, please reach out to me.
Loren Sackett PE, CSP
Alpine Engineering and Design
111 W. Canyon Crest Rd.
Alpine, UT 84004
801-763-8484