Gas lift office chair

[Lamparilla]

I have quite a good quality office chair that I use a lot, but the gas lift strut in it finally gave up the ghost last week. The chair was still usable, but only at its lowest setting because the strut had failed.

These days, the usual reaction is to chuck the chair and buy a new one, but after years of watching my Dad fixing things, I thought I'd have a go.

Several Youtube videos later, and the purchase of a new gas strut off Ebay (£8) plus a heavy duty pipe wrench from Screwfix (£15, and the pipe wrench now goes into my tool box) it took 10 minutes to do the job and I now have an 'as new' chair for £23, or £8 if you deduct the pipe wrench.

The purpose of this post is not virtue-signalling, but to encourage others to save a lot of money and get a bit of statisfaction from quite a simple job I'd be happy to pass on any tips if anyone has a similar problem with a chair.

[silver fox]

I have quite a good quality office chair that I use a lot, but the gas lift strut in it finally gave up the ghost last week. The chair was still usable, but only at its lowest setting because the strut had failed.

These days, the usual reaction is to chuck the chair and buy a new one, but after years of watching my Dad fixing things, I thought I'd have a go.

Several Youtube videos later, and the purchase of a new gas strut off Ebay (£8) plus a heavy duty pipe wrench from Screwfix (£15, and the pipe wrench now goes into my tool box) it took 10 minutes to do the job and I now have an 'as new' chair for £23, or £8 if you deduct the pipe wrench.

The purpose of this post is not virtue-signalling, but to encourage others to save a lot of money and get a bit of statisfaction from quite a simple job I'd be happy to pass on any tips if anyone has a similar problem with a chair.

With you on that, if something is repairable then fix it, isn’t possible with everything, but sure have “fixed” a good number of things which looked destined for the scrap.

The funny thing is my daughters called me “make do and mend” but later married with homes of their own, guess who they rang first when something packed up.

[Toodles McGinty]

I recently got rid of a chair like that. Happily I was given another for free. But it was so frustrating when I'd be sat there working happily away, then the slight hiss was heard and I'd sink slowly down until my head was level with my keyboard.

Even worse when I'd be in a Zoom meeting. You can't recover your dignity when you've disappeared from sight like a ship hit by an iceberg.

Him Indoors and I will both have a go at fixing something before buying new, but I never considered I could do that with my office chair. I figured once the gas had gone, that was it. Noted for the future, next time I hear the dreaded hiss.

[Lamparilla]

I recently got rid of a chair like that. Happily I was given another for free. But it was so frustrating when I'd be sat there working happily away, then the slight hiss was heard and I'd sink slowly down until my head was level with my keyboard.

Even worse when I'd be in a Zoom meeting. You can't recover your dignity when you've disappeared from sight like a ship hit by an iceberg.

Him Indoors and I will both have a go at fixing something before buying new, but I never considered I could do that with my office chair. I figured once the gas had gone, that was it. Noted for the future, next time I hear the dreaded hiss.

Well I thought the same, until I looked on Youtube - you can find just about every DIY job on the planet there.

Once you know how, it takes 5 minutes. The strut just pushes in and is held by the weight of someone sitting on it. The hard part is getting the old one out of the seat, hence the pipe wrench.

[Blackrock]

The hard part is getting the old one out of the seat, hence the pipe wrench.

I thought you were talking about shifting an elderly relative for a second

[Lamparilla]

I thought you were talking about shifting an elderly relative for a second

I usually find that shaking a bag of Werthers does the trick