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Sorry if this is the wrong place to put this, but since it does deal with a piece of equipment that we all use everyday and is an actually important one that folks tend to take for granted, I'm putting this here.

The right armrest of my office chair completely broke off last night and the left one is hanging loose as well. So I need a new seat, nothing fancy just something that is durable and comfortable to sit in. I brought my current chair for $100 at Big Lots almost four years ago, so I guess $25 a year isn't too bad but....

Of course I can still use what I have, however I'm feeling uncomfortable without having armrests. So what chairs do you guys prefer? Or will any office chair do?

My office bought a round of HON chairs about 10 years ago. They were/are so comfortable that I bought an identical one for my home office. Certainly not a $100 purchase, but I've got 10 years on both and, beside a broken caster on the office one, no issues whatsoever.

My political boss responded to my request for a new caster with "just get a new chair". I paid $5 on my own for a replacement on Amazon and overstated mileage by 10 miles one day to recoup the cost.

Thanks. I'll take a look at HON chairs. I take it that they are pricey?

whm1974 wrote:

Thanks. I'll take a look at HON chairs. I take it that they are pricey?

Yep. Real office chairs at real office prices, but they last forever.

I would say Steelcase are the best for durability, followed closely by HON. Most others only last a few years before they start to break. As far as comfort goes, I think that depends on the person (people come in different sizes and shapes) and the adjustability of the chair. My chair is a very old (late 80s early 90s) Steelcase. I sometimes volunteer for a non profit organization that big corporations donate used but good office furniture and equipment to for tax write-offs, and we turn around and donate it to schools and such. We have seen hundreds of thousands of office chairs go through our warehouses. We will not take any chairs that are not Steelcase or HON.

I bought a La-Z-Boy office chair at Staples around a year ago. It was somewhere between HON/Steelcase pricing and cheap-ass chairs. It's on sale right now, apparently.

derFunkenstein wrote:

I bought a La-Z-Boy office chair at Staples around a year ago. It was somewhere between HON/Steelcase pricing and cheap-ass chairs. It's on sale right now, apparently.

La-Z-Boy seems like an odd brand for an *office* chair.

It is, but I sat in the display model and...damn.

Staples has some decent chairs honestly. I'm not a fan of any foam-bottomed chairs unless they're the expensive memory foam ones, because after a year or two the polyurethane foam just goes flat. So I decided to try an all mesh chair and picked up the Staples/Quill Hyken when it was on sale for about $120. It's nice enough that my wife wanted the same one (though she just left it without the headrest, because it's not very adjustable). http://www.staples.com/Staples-Hyken-Te ... uct_990119 it's actually on sale again now, how fortuitous!

There are always better chairs like Herman Miller etc but the midrange Staples/Office Depot/Office Max chairs really aren't bad if you know what to avoid. Just make sure you never pay full price for one, since they go on sale every 3-6 months.

Thanks guys. Maybe I'll go over to the local K-Mart and see what they still have in stock. They are closing the local store, so maybe I'll get something for a good price.

whm1974 wrote:

Thanks guys. Maybe I'll go over to the local K-Mart and see what they still have in stock. They are closing the local store, so maybe I'll get something for a good price.

I wouldn't expect anything good from a K-Mart closeout. Probably not worth your time unless the overriding concern is price.

Funny...I lost the arm to my chair some time last year. I put off replacing it because it is still working okay, and I plan on refurnishing our office/gaming area sometime soonish, so new office chairs are probably on that list.

I am leaning towards something like HON. Even though it is on the high end, I spend a lot of time at my computer, so I might as well get something designed for prolonged use...

just brew it! wrote:

whm1974 wrote:

Thanks guys. Maybe I'll go over to the local K-Mart and see what they still have in stock. They are closing the local store, so maybe I'll get something for a good price.

I wouldn't expect anything good from a K-Mart closeout. Probably not worth your time unless the overriding concern is price.

Yeah that would be something to keep in mind.

Oh boy, HON and SteelCase chairs are not cheap. The cheapest HON chair I found after a brief search is three hundred dollars! But you guys say these chairs last for a long time?

The Investment Bank I used to work at bought Generation Chair by Knoll. They're 'spensive, but come from a really interesting thought where instead of trying to find a comfy position for everyone, it just encourages you to shift around, like you do when you sleep.

On the other hand, I bought a Markus chair from IKEA, for about $200 it looks like. It's pretty good, but can be somewhat unstable on carpet. The legs aren't wide enough, and I have tipped myself over completely once. If you keep your feet on the ground it should be okay, but I leaned back and then curled up in a foetal position. Oops.

I bought most of the furniture for my company at the local University surplus (Steelcase all). It is fine for people who move around a lot, and that tends to happen in a wet/intrument lab. The looks are out-of-date, but who cares?

I bought a Steelcase Leap for myself (used). I like it a lot.

just brew it! wrote:

whm1974 wrote:

Thanks guys. Maybe I'll go over to the local K-Mart and see what they still have in stock. They are closing the local store, so maybe I'll get something for a good price.

I wouldn't expect anything good from a K-Mart closeout. Probably not worth your time unless the overriding concern is price.

My wife worked for Kmart here in town until it closed last spring. The company has a very cut and dried policy on store closings, and it doesn't involved huge price cuts. She explained it to me, and it makes sense (from a business standpoint), but shoppers can't win.

Sears Holdings (Kmart parent) also owns a liquidation company. All of the store's assets are transferred to the liquidator and the liquidator jacks up the price to some nonsense value before cutting off some "percent". The liquidator is happy to take anything that doesn't sell at their lowest-bottom-dollar price to the next closing Kmart or Sears store and try selling it there. Until Sears Holdings totally folds (a likely event, because one day they'll run out of things to close), you won't find anything at better than *maybe* 10-15% below actual retail price.

derFunkenstein wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

whm1974 wrote:

Thanks guys. Maybe I'll go over to the local K-Mart and see what they still have in stock. They are closing the local store, so maybe I'll get something for a good price.

I wouldn't expect anything good from a K-Mart closeout. Probably not worth your time unless the overriding concern is price.

My wife worked for Kmart here in town until it closed last spring. The company has a very cut and dried policy on store closings, and it doesn't involved huge price cuts. She explained it to me, and it makes sense (from a business standpoint), but shoppers can't win.

Sears Holdings (Kmart parent) also owns a liquidation company. All of the store's assets are transferred to the liquidator and the liquidator jacks up the price to some nonsense value before cutting off some "percent". The liquidator is happy to take anything that doesn't sell at their lowest-bottom-dollar price to the next closing Kmart or Sears store and try selling it there. Until Sears Holdings totally folds (a likely event, because one day they'll run out of things to close), you won't find anything at better than *maybe* 10-15% below actual retail price.

So I would be better off going to an office store and looking around deals there then?

Aeron. Accept no substitutes. I'm a cheap bastard but having one for two years at my first job made me a true believer.

Steelcase is also good, especially if you prefer an upholstered chair but still want it to last forever and a half. Office furniture vendors will generally have a showroom so you can try the chair out before forking over a bunch of money. They often also have closeouts and used furniture if cost is an issue. The one issue here is that these stores are usually only open during standard business hours since the overwhelming majority of their customers are being paid to shop there.

whm1974 wrote:

So I would be better off going to an office store and looking around deals there then?

You can go to Kmart but I don't think you'll find anything there. Dustin Hoffman said it best: "Kmart sucks"

Well my case manager come over and fixed my chair for me. That saved me some money, but thanks for your help guys.

We have Steelcase Leap chairs here at work and they are holding up well. They also are meant to let you move around in them.

derFunkenstein wrote:

<snip>
All of the store's assets are transferred to the liquidator and the liquidator jacks up the price to some nonsense value before cutting off some "percent". The liquidator is happy to take anything that doesn't sell at their lowest-bottom-dollar price to the next closing Kmart or Sears store and try selling it there. Until Sears Holdings totally folds (a likely event, because one day they'll run out of things to close), you won't find anything at better than *maybe* 10-15% below actual retail price.

The common clearance company here in Canada do the same thing. Saw it with Target (and Zellers before them) when they ceased Canadian operations.
Sometimes they are so lazy they don't even remove the original clearance price.
I've seen them mark up their up own price just so they could change from 30% off to 50% off, end price was a few cents more. You can sometimes peel off the clearance tags to see history or even save money.

Any recommendations for a good armless chair under $300?

I bought an Embody office chair a few years ago for my home "office". It is spectacularly comfortable. Unfortunately it is rather pricey.

At work I was involved in the selection process for new office chairs. I was pleasantly surprised to find something really good that did not break the bank:

ProGrid High Back Managers Chair

There is a wide range of chairs available from that company. Hopefully you can find one that fits your needs/budget.

Edit: https://www.amazon.com/Proline-ProGrid- ... B00450P182

if at all possible, try it out first before buying. they do sell chairs at staples / office max / office depot if you're in the states, but i found them to be lackluster for the most part.

Many cities have used office furniture resalers where you can get decent prices on lightly used Herman Miller, Steelcase or HON chairs. They are still more expensive than the Office Depot/Staples options but not nearly as expensive as new ones. The places I have been to have the chairs on display so you can try them out and inspect them before purchasing too. So even if you don't want a new chair you can go to one place to try out several different options of good chairs and make sure the model that looks good to you also feels good and is adjustable to fit you correctly.

Dazrin wrote:

Many cities have used office furniture resalers where you can get decent prices on lightly used Herman Miller, Steelcase or HON chairs. They are still more expensive than the Office Depot/Staples options but not nearly as expensive as new ones. The places I have been to have the chairs on display so you can try them out and inspect them before purchasing too. So even if you don't want a new chair you can go to one place to try out several different options of good chairs and make sure the model that looks good to you also feels good and is adjustable to fit you correctly.

This. I made do with office supply store furniture for years and watched it fall apart at the usual pace. Once my wife and I had finished our basement reno a couple years ago including a planned new office area, I decided to try out a commercial office liquidator. We ended up with a secretary-type L-desk with low hutches (which, for our use, went neatly into a corner) and a high-quality used chair for about $800 including delivery and installation. This desk still has a 2001 manufacturing date showing on the underside, and unlike those paper-covered desks from the office store, this one should last at least another couple decades. The only catch is that inventory is not guaranteed, you have to have an idea what you want and the measurements that will fit, then troll the store for a week or three until you see an item that might work.

At home I still use the L-shaped Steelcase desk I picked up used at an office moving sale literally DECADES ago. It still has the company property sticker on it from the original owner; the sticker is on there REALLY good and I didn't feel like futzing with it and potentially damaging the edge of the desk. IIRC I only paid like $10 or $20 for it, but you had to disassemble and haul it out of the recently vacated office building yourself. It still looks and feels pretty much exactly the way it did when I originally acquired it some ~30 years ago -- i.e. a somewhat used, but built-like-a-frikkin-tank piece of industrial furniture.

I used to have another similar one (minus the L section) that I acquired for free. Back in the '90s a couple of former co-workers and I started a small consulting business. When we moved in to our new office space the landlord informed us that the tenant across the hall had skipped out on their lease and disappeared a couple of months prior; we were told we could help ourselves to any furniture we wanted from the suite across the hall (presumably because every piece of furniture we took was one less piece they had to haul away). I ditched that desk the last time we moved since I really didn't have a use for it. I also grabbed a small wooden desk (real wood!) which served as my computer desk while the consulting business lasted, and which (after we folded that business) became my wife's computer desk; she still uses it to this day. Also grabbed a couple of office chairs (which did eventually wear out, but we got many years of use out of them too).

As you can probably guess from the above, I have shelled out very little for office furniture over the years.

The priciest piece of office furniture I own is probably the desk chair my wife got me for Christmas about 10 years ago. The padding on the seat has gotten a little smashed down over the years, but that's nothing a cushion won't fix. Aside from that it is still in decent shape.

I've been using an Alera Elusion chair for about six months. Check it out here: https://www.amazon.com/Alera-Elusion-Mid-Back-Swivel-Chair/dp/B0046H56JS

The chair is built surprisingly well, despite the low price. I also find it comfortable, and use it a lot. I was skeptical when I ordered it, but it has worked out well. Long term reliability has yet to be determined.