All clothing storage must meet new tip-over requirements?

[Kent A Bathurst]

...the far greater danger from this legislation comes from the government.

Yeah, well indirectly, insofar as govco authored the regulations.

A jury of your peers aghast at the injury caused by "someone's" malfeasance, as directed by a contingency-40%-of-the-cut PI lawyer, is the greater source of the danger/risk. It's like at the poker table with new players - if you look around and can't tell who the pigeon is - it's you.

You may want to check in with your liability insurance carrier. You can be certain they are up on this issue. And if they're not, that in itself may be cause for some concern.

[Edward Weber]

I read that on their page as well, unfortunately to the "average" person, that's clear as mud.
Questions you can already hear being asked.
What's an interlock?
"8.5 lb per ft3 of volume", how much volume does my dresser have?
"Horizontal force – Apply 10 lb of force at highest hand-hold", which way is horizontal and where is the hand hold?
"extendible element most likely to cause tip-over", which one is that? the top, or the bottom that gets stood on to reach the top?

[Lloyd McKinlay]

I read that on their page as well, unfortunately to the "average" person, that's clear as mud.
Questions you can already hear being asked.
What's an interlock?
"8.5 lb per ft3 of volume", how much volume does my dresser have?
"Horizontal force – Apply 10 lb of force at highest hand-hold", which way is horizontal and where is the hand hold?
"extendible element most likely to cause tip-over", which one is that? the top, or the bottom that gets stood on to reach the top?

I assume the testing requirements would be written for the manufacturer or testing facility. As an average consumer I don't need to know the meat packing industry inspection requirements, only that the USDA does.

[Bradley Gray]

I guess I'm done making tall dressers. Not my favorite thing anyway.

[Christian Hawkshaw]

I guess I'm done making tall dressers. Not my favorite thing anyway.

It does not have to be that tall..from one of the links earlier:

• Free-standing
• Height of at least 27 inches
• Mass of at least 30 pounds

[Michael Rutman]

Unless that walnut dresser is much deeper than current styles, I would take the other side of that bet. The dresser we make at the furniture bank is 15.5" deep, made of 3/4" melamine and weighs 100+ lbs. Probably heavier than most hardwood dressers of comparable size. Our dresser did not pass the new tests.

I would not take that bet on either side as you are quite right, I did not consider a 15.5" deep dresser, I was thinking of 20-24" deep. Even then, it would depend on the height, weight of the drawers and if they were full pull out or 3/4 pull out.

Just curious, how are you fixing your furniture bank dressers?

[Brian Tymchak]

...Just curious, how are you fixing your furniture bank dressers?

We are still experimenting. Looking at combinations of cabinet depth, weight distribution, drawer stop position, etc. If that all fails, I have a new design in mind that might work, but would require a lot of changes to our production.

[Edward Weber]

I assume the testing requirements would be written for the manufacturer or testing facility. As an average consumer I don't need to know the meat packing industry inspection requirements, only that the USDA does.

But if you're a woodworker who makes and sells dressers, you need to know this.

[Holmes Anderson]

For those interested in more detail:
https://www.foley.com/en/insights/pu...-storage-units
https://myhfa.org/clothing-storage-unit-compliance/
https://www.cpsc.gov/Newsroom/Video/...-Storage-Units

[Tom Bender]

If something I built kills someone, the lawsuit will be the smaller injury.

[Brian Tymchak]

Thought I would offer a followup on this topic. We just got word yesterday that our new design 4 drawer dresser passed the tip tests of the new standards. There was an issue with labelling which will be worked out this week. We sent our dresser to a test lab in Detroit. The testing cost about $700. So we started this week to retool the shop to produce the new cabinet. Lot's of work - rebuild 10 work stations, create or modify 7 or 8 parts templates, review/modify a half dozen cut lists. We even have to modify some parts storage to accomodate new dimensions of parts. Hopefully we are back into production mid next week.

The new standard requires an approved tip over warning sticker adhered inside the top drawer. There is specific text and imagery required on the sticker. The standard requires the sticker to not be "peelable", or easy removed. The label must shred when removal is attempted. It looks like we were the first builder to attempt the labeling part of the standard as the furniture bank manager found typos in the verbage as he worked with U-Line to produce the stickers, which will be a new product for them.